Complete Works of Emile Zola (731 page)

“What’s the matter?” asked Pauline, quickly, when she remarked the young girl’s troubled looks.

“Oh! nothing,” replied the latter, with an awkward smile.

“Yes, yes; there’s something the matter with you. Have you no faith in me, that you have given up telling me your troubles?”

Then Denise, in the emotion that was swelling her bosom — an emotion she could not control — abandoned herself to her feelings. She gave her friend the letter, stammering: “Look! he has just written to me.”

Between themselves, they had never openly spoken of Mouret. But this very silence was like a confession of their secret pre-occupations. Pauline knew everything. After having read the letter, she clasped Denise in her arms, and softly murmured: “My dear, to speak frankly, I thought it was already done. Don’t be shocked; I assure you the whole shop must think as I do. Naturally! he appointed you as second-hand so quickly, then he’s always after you. It’s obvious!” She kissed her affectionately, and then asked her: “You will go this evening, of course?”

Denise looked at her without replying. All at once she burst into tears, her head on Pauline’s shoulder. The latter was quite astonished.

“Come, try and calm yourself; there’s nothing in the affair to upset you like this.”

“No, no; let me be,” stammered Denise. “If you only knew what trouble I am in! Since I received that letter, I have felt beside myself. Let me have a good cry, that will relieve me.”

Full of pity, though not understanding, Pauline endeavored to console her. In the first place, he had thrown up Clara. It was said he still visited a lady outside, but that was not proved. Then she explained that one could not be jealous of a man in such a position. He had too much money; he was the master, after all. Denise listened to her, and had she been ignorant of her love, she could no longer have doubted it after the suffering she felt at the name of Clara and the allusion to Madame Desforges, which made her heart bleed. She could hear Clara’s disagreeable voice, she could see Madame Desforges dragging her about the different departments with the scorn of a rich lady for a poor shop-girl.

“So you would go yourself?” asked she.

Pauline, without pausing to think, cried out: “Of course, how can one do otherwise!” Then reflecting, she added: “Not now, but formerly, because now I am going to marry Baugé, and it would not be right.”

In fact, Baugé, who had left the Bon Marché for The Ladies’ Paradise, was going to marry her about the middle of the month. Bourdoncle did not like these married couples; they had managed, however, to get the necessary permission, and even hoped to obtain a fortnight’s holiday for their honeymoon.

“There you are,” declared Denise, “when a man loves a girl he ought to marry her. Baugé is going to marry you.”

Pauline laughed heartily. “But my dear, it isn’t the same thing. Baugé is going to marry me because he is Baugé. He’s my equal, that’s a natural thing. Whilst Monsieur Mouret! Do you think Monsieur Mouret can marry his saleswomen?”

“Oh! No, oh! no,” exclaimed the young girl, shocked by the absurdity of the question, “and that’s why he ought not to have written to me.”

This argument completely astonished Pauline. Her coarse face, with her small tender eyes, assumed quite an expression of maternal compassion. Then she got up, opened the piano, and softly played with one finger, “King Dagobert,” to enliven the situation, no doubt. Into the nakedness of the drawing-room, the white coverings of which seemed to increase the emptiness, came the noises from the street, the distant melopoeia of a woman crying out green peas. Denise had thrown herself back on the sofa, her head against the wood-work, shaken by a fresh flood of sobs, which she stifled in her handkerchief.

“Again!” resumed Pauline, turning round. “Really you are not reasonable. Why did you bring me here? We ought to have stopped in your room.”

She knelt down before her, and commenced lecturing her again. How many others would like to be in her place! Besides, if the thing did not please her, it was very simple: she had only to say no, without worrying herself like this. But she should reflect before risking her position by a refusal which was inexplicable, considering she had no engagement elsewhere. Was it such a terrible thing after all? and the reprimand was finishing up by some pleasantries, gaily whispered, when a sound of footsteps was heard in the passage. Pauline ran to the door and looked out.

“Hush! Madame Aurélie!” she murmured. “I’m off, and just you dry your eyes. She need not know what’s up.”

When Denise was alone, she got up, and forced back her tears; and, her hands still trembling, with the fear of being caught there doing nothing, she closed the piano, which her friend had left open. But on hearing Madame Aurélie knocking at her door, she left the drawing-room.

“What! you are up!” exclaimed the first-hand. “It’s very thoughtless of you, my dear child. I was just coming up to see how you were, and to tell you that we did not require you downstairs.”

Denise assured her that she felt very much better, that it would do her good to do something to amuse herself.

“I sha’n’t tire myself, madame. You can place me on a chair, and I’ll do some writing.”

Both then went downstairs. Madame Aurélie, who was most attentive, insisted on Denise leaning on her shoulder. She must have noticed the young girl’s red eyes, for she was stealthily examining her. No doubt she was aware of a great deal of what was going on.

It was an unexpected victory: Denise had at last conquered the department. After struggling for six months, amidst her torments as drudge and fag, without disarming her comrades’ ill-will, she had in a few weeks entirely overcome them, and now saw them around her submissive and respectful. Madame Aurélie’s sudden affection had greatly assisted her in this ungrateful task of softening her comrades’ hearts towards her. It was whispered that the first-hand was Mouret’s obliging factotum, that she rendered him many delicate services; and she took the young girl under her protection with such warmth that the latter must have been recommended to her in a very special manner. But Denise had also brought all her charm into play in order to disarm her enemies. The task was all the more difficult from the fact that she had to obtain their pardon for her appointment to the situation of second-hand. The young ladies spoke of this as an injustice, accused her of having earned it at dessert, with the governor; and even added a lot of abominable details. But in spite of their revolt, the title of second-hand influenced them, Denise assumed a certain authority which astonished and overawed the most hostile spirits. Soon after, she even found flatterers amongst the new hands; and her sweetness and modesty finished the conquest. Marguerite came over to her side. Clara was the only one to continue her ill-natured ways, still venturing on the old insult of the “unkempt girl,” which no one now saw the fun of. During her short intimacy with Mouret, she had taken advantage of it to neglect her work, being of a wonderfully idle, gossiping nature; then, as he had quickly tired of her, she did not even recriminate, incapable of jealousy in the disorderly abandon of her existence, perfectly satisfied to have profited from it to the extent of being allowed to stand about doing nothing. But, at the same time, she considered that Denise had robbed her of Madame Frédéric’s place. She would never have accepted it, on account of the worry; but she was vexed at the want of politeness, for she had the same claims as the other one, and prior claims too.

“Hullo! there’s the young mother being trotted out after her confinement,” murmured she, on seeing Madame Aurélie bringing Denise in on her arm.

Marguerite shrugged her shoulders, saying, “I dare say you think that’s a good joke!”

Nine o’clock struck. Outside, an ardent blue sky was warming the streets, cabs were rolling towards the railway stations, the whole population, dressed out in Sunday clothes, was streaming in long rows towards the suburban woods. Inside the building, inundated with sun through the large open bays, the cooped-up staff had just commenced the stocktaking. They had closed the doors; people stopped on the pavement, looking through the windows, astonished at this shutting-up when an extraordinary activity was going on inside. There was, from one end of the galleries to the other, from the top floor to the bottom, a continual movement of employees, their arms in the air, and parcels flying about above their heads; and all this amidst a tempest of cries and a calling out of prices, the confusion of which ascended and became a deafening roar. Each of the thirty-nine departments did its work apart, without troubling about its neighbor. At this early hour the shelves had hardly been touched, there were only a few bales of goods on the floors; the machine would have to get up more steam if they were to finish that evening.

“Why have you come down?” asked Marguerite of Denise, good-naturedly. “You’ll only make yourself worse, and we are quite enough to do the work.”

“That’s what I told her,” declared Madame Aurélie, “but she insisted on coming down to help us.”

All the young ladies flocked round Denise. The work was interrupted even for a time. They complimented her, listening with various exclamations to the story of her sprained ankle. At last Madame Aurélie made her sit down at a table; and it was understood that she should merely write down the articles as they were called out. On such a day as this they requisitioned any employee capable of holding a pen: the inspectors, the cashiers, the clerks, even down to the shop messengers; and the various departments divided amongst themselves these assistants of a day to get the work over quicker. It was thus that Denise found herself installed near Lhomme the cashier and Joseph the messenger, both bending over large sheets of paper.

“Five mantles, cloth, fur trimming, third size, at two hundred and forty francs!” cried Marguerite. “Four ditto, first size, at two hundred and twenty!”

The work once more commenced. Behind Marguerite three saleswomen were emptying the cupboards, classifying the articles, giving them to her in bundles; and, when she had called them out, she threw them on the table, where they were gradually heaping up in enormous piles. Lhomme wrote down the articles, Joseph kept another list for the clearinghouse. Whilst this was going on, Madame Aurélie herself, assisted by three other saleswomen, was counting the silk garments, which Denise entered on the sheets. Clara was employed in looking after the heaps, to arrange them in such a manner that they should occupy the least space possible on the tables. But she was not paying much attention to her work, for the heaps were already tumbling down.

“I say,” asked she of a little saleswoman who had joined that winter, “are they going to give you a rise? You know the second-hand is to have two thousand francs, which, with her commission, will bring her in nearly seven thousand.”

The little saleswoman, without ceasing to pass some cloaks down, replied that if they didn’t give her eight hundred francs she would take her hook. The rises were always given the day after the stock-taking; it was also the epoch at which, the amount of business done during the year being known, the managers of the departments drew their commission on the increase of this figure, compared with that of the preceding year. Thus, notwithstanding the bustle and uproar of the work, the impassioned gossiping went on everywhere. Between two articles called out, they talked of nothing but money. The rumor ran that Madame Aurélie would exceed twenty-five thousand francs; and this immense sum greatly excited the young ladies. Marguerite, the best saleswoman after Denise, had made four thousand five hundred francs, fifteen hundred francs salary, and about three thousand francs commission; whilst Clara had not made two thousand five hundred francs altogether.

“I don’t care a button for their rises!” resumed the latter, still talking to the little saleswoman. “If papa were dead, I would jolly soon clear out of this! But what exasperates me is to see seven thousand francs given to that strip of a girl! What do you say?”

Madame Aurélie violently interrupted the conversation, turning round with her imperial air. “Be quiet, young ladies. We can’t hear ourselves speak, my word of honor!”

Then she resumed calling out: “Seven mantles, old style, Sicilian, first size, at a hundred and thirty! Three pelisses, surah, second size, at a hundred and fifty! Have you got that down, Mademoiselle Baudu?”

“Yes, madame.”

Clara then had to look after the armfuls of garments piled on the tables. She pushed them about, and made more room. But she soon left them again to reply to a salesman, who was looking for her. It was the glover, Mignot, escaped from his. He whispered a request for twenty francs; he already owed her thirty, a loan effected the day after a race, after Laving lost his week’s salary on a horse; this time he had squandered his commission, drawn over night, and had not ten sous for his Sunday. Clara had only ten francs about her, which she lent him with a fairly good grace. And they went on talking, spoke of a party of six, indulged in at a restaurant at Bougival, where the women had paid their share: it was much better, they all felt perfectly at their ease like that. Then Mignot, who wanted his twenty francs, went and bent over Lhomme’s shoulder. The latter, stopped in his writing, appeared greatly troubled. However, he dared not refuse, and was looking for the money in his purse, when Madame Aurélie, astonished not to hear Marguerite’s voice, which had been interrupted, perceived Mignot, and understood at once. She roughly sent him back to his department, saying she didn’t want anyone to come and distract her young ladies from their work. The truth is, she dreaded this young man, a bosom friend of Albert’s, the accomplice of his doubtful tricks, which she trembled to see turn out badly some day. Therefore, when Mignot had got his ten francs, and had run away, she could not help saying to her husband:

“Is it possible! to let a fellow like that get over you!”

“But, my dear, I really could not refuse the young man.” She closed his mouth with a shrug of her substantial shoulders. Then, as the saleswomen were slyly grinning at this family explanation, she resumed with severity: “Now, Mademoiselle Vadon, don’t let’s go to sleep.”