Complete Works of Emile Zola (747 page)

In the Rue de la Michodière, Bourras was standing on the pavement opposite his house, from which he had been expelled the previous day by a fine trick, a discovery of the lawyers; as Mouret held some bills, he had easily obtained an order in bankruptcy against the umbrella-maker; then he had given five hundred francs for the expiring lease at the sale ordered by the court; so that the obstinate old man had allowed himself to be deprived of, for five hundred francs, what he had refused to give up for a hundred thousand. The architect, who came with his gang of workmen, had been obliged to employ the police to get him out. The goods had been taken and sold; but he still kept himself obstinately in the corner where he slept, and from which they did not like to drive him, out of pity. The workmen even attacked the roofing over his head. They had taken off the rotten slates, the ceilings fell in, the walls cracked, and yet he stuck there, under the naked old beams, amidst the ruins of the shop. At last the police came, and he went away. But the following morning he again appeared on the opposite side of the street, after having spent the night in a lodging-house in the neighborhood.

“Monsieur Bourras!” said Denise, kindly.

He did not hear her, his flaming eyes were devouring the workmen who were attacking the front of the hovel with their picks. Through the empty window-frames could be seen the inside of the house, the miserable rooms, and the black staircase, where the sun had not penetrated for the last two hundred years.

“Ah! it’s you,” replied he, at last, when he recognized her. “A nice bit of work they’re doing, eh? the robbers!”

She did not now dare to speak, stirred up by the lamentable sadness of the old place, herself unable to take her eyes off the moldy stones that were falling. Above, in a corner of the ceiling of her old room, she still perceived the name in black and shaky letters — Ernestine — written with the flame of a candle, and the remembrance of those days of misery came back to her, inspiring her with a tender sympathy for all suffering. But the workmen, in order to knock one of the walls down at a blow, had attacked it at its base. It was tottering.

“Should like to see it crush all of them,” growled Bourras, in a savage voice.

There was a terrible cracking noise. The frightened workmen ran out into the street. In falling down, the wall tottered and carried all the house with it. No doubt the hovel was ripe for the fall — it could no longer stand, with its flaws and cracks; a push had sufficed to cleave it from top to bottom. It was a pitiful crumbling away, the razing of a mud-house soddened by the rains. Not a board remained standing; there was nothing on the ground but a heap of rubbish, the dung of the past thrown at the street corner.

“Oh, heavens!” exclaimed the old man, as if the blow had resounded in his very entrails.

He stood there gaping, never supposing it would have been over so quick. And he looked at the gap, the hollow space at last left free on the flanks of The Ladies’ Paradise. It was like the crushing of a gnat, the final triumph over the annoying obstinacy of the infinitely small, the whole isle invaded and conquered. The passers-by lingered to talk to the workmen, who were crying out against these old buildings, only good for killing people.

“Monsieur Bourras,” repeated Denise, trying to get him on one side, “you know that you will not be abandoned. All your wants will be provided for.”

He held up his head. “I have no wants. You’ve been sent by them, haven’t you? Well, tell them that old Bourras still knows how to work, and that he can find work wherever he likes. Really, it would be a fine thing to offer charity to those they are assassinating!”

Then she implored him: “Pray accept, Monsieur Bourras; don’t give me this grief.”

But he shook his bushy head. “No, no, it’s all over. Good-bye. Go and live happily, you who are young, and don’t prevent old people sticking to their ideas.”

He cast a last glance at the heap of rubbish, and then went away. She watched him disappear, elbowed by the crowd on the pavement. He turned the corner of the Place Gaillon, and all was over. For a moment, Denise remained motionless, lost in thought. At last she went over to her uncle’s. The draper was alone in the dark shop of The Old Elbeuf. The charwoman only came morning and evening to do a little cooking, and to take down and put up the shutters. He spent hours in this solitude, often without being disturbed once during the whole day, bewildered, and unable to find the goods when a stray customer happened to venture in. And there in the half-light he marched about unceasingly, with that heavy step he had at the two funerals, yielding to a sickly desire, regular fits of forced marching, as if he were trying to rock his grief to sleep.

“Are you feeling better, uncle?” asked Denise. He only stopped for a second to glance at her. Then he started off again, going from the pay-desk to an obscure corner.

“Yes, yes. Very well, thanks.”

She tried to find some consoling subject, some cheerful remark, but could think of nothing. “Did you hear the noise? The house is down.”

“Ah! it’s true,” murmured he, with an astonished look, “that must have been the house. I felt the ground tremble. Seeing them on the roof this morning, I closed my door.”

And he made a vague movement, to imitate that such things no longer interested him. Every time he arrived before the pay-desk, he looked at the empty seat, that well-known velvet covered seat, where his wife and daughter had grown up. Then when his perpetual walking brought him to the other end, he gazed at the shelves drowned in shadow, in which a few pieces of cloth were gradually growing moldy. It was a widowed house, those he loved had disappeared, his business had come to a shameful end, and he was left alone to commune with his dead heart, and his pride brought low amidst all these catastrophes. He raised his eyes towards the black ceiling, overcome by the sepulchral silence which reigned in the little dining room, the family nook, of which he had formerly loved every part, even down to the stuffy odor. Not a breath was now heard in the old house, his regular heavy step made the ancient walls resound, as if he were walking over the tombs of his affections.

At last Denise approached the subject which had brought her. “Uncle, you can’t stay like this. You must come to a decision.”

He replied, without stopping his walk—”No doubt; but what would you have me do? I’ve tried to sell, but no one has come. One of these mornings I shall shut up shop and go off.”

She was aware that a failure was no longer to be feared. The creditors had preferred to come to an understanding before such a long series of misfortunes. Everything paid, the old man would find himself in the street, penniless.

“But what will you do, then?” murmured she, seeking some transition in order to arrive at the offer she dared not make.

“I don’t know,” replied he. “They’ll pick me up all right.” He had changed his route, going from the dining room to the windows with their lamentable displays, looking at the latter, every time he came to them, with a gloomy expression. His gaze did not even turn towards the triumphal façade of The Ladies’ Paradise, whose architectural lines ran as far as the eye could see, to the right and to the left, at both ends of the street. He was thoroughly annihilated, and had not even the strength to get angry.

“Listen, uncle,” said Denise, greatly embarrassed; “perhaps there might be a situation for you.” She stopped, and stammered. “Yes, I am charged to offer you a situation as inspector.”

“Where?” asked Baudu.

“Opposite,” replied she; “in our shop. Six thousand francs a year; a very easy place.”

Suddenly he stopped in front of her. But instead of getting angry as she feared he would, he turned very pale, succumbing to a grievous emotion, a feeling of bitter resignation.

“Opposite, opposite,” stammered he several times. “You want me to go opposite?”

Denise herself was affected by this emotion. She recalled the long struggle of the two shops, assisted at the funerals of Geneviève and Madame Baudu, saw before her The Old Elbeuf overthrown, utterly ruined by The Ladies’ Paradise. And the idea of her uncle taking a situation opposite, and walking about in a white neck-tie, made her heart leap with pity and revolt.

“Come, Denise, is it possible?” said he, simply, wringing his poor trembling hands.

“No, no, uncle,” exclaimed she, in a sudden burst of her just and excellent being. “It would be wrong. Forgive me, I beg of you.”

He resumed his walk, his step once more broke the funereal silence of the house. And when she left him, he was still going on in that obstinate locomotion of great griefs, which turn round themselves without ever being able to get beyond.

Denise passed another sleepless night. She had just touched the bottom of her powerlessness. Even in favor of her own people she was unable to find any consolation. She had been obliged to assist to the bitter end at this invincible work of life which requires death as its continual seed. She no longer struggled, she accepted this law of combat; but her womanly soul was filled with a weeping pity, with a fraternal tenderness at the idea of suffering humanity. For years, she herself had been caught in the wheel-work of the machine. Had she not bled there? Had they not bruised her, dismissed her, overwhelmed her with insults? Even now she was frightened, when she felt herself chosen by the logic of facts. Why her, a girl so puny? Why should her small hand suddenly become so powerful amidst the monster’s work? And the force which was sweeping everything away, carried her away in her turn, she, whose coming was to be a revenge. Mouret had invented this mechanism for crushing the world, and its brutal working shocked her; he had sown ruin all over the neighborhood, despoiled some, killed others; and yet she loved him for the grandeur of his work, she loved him still more at every excess of his power, notwithstanding the flood of tears which overcame her, before the sacred misery of the vanquished.

CHAPTER XIV

The Rue du Dix-Décembre, looking quite new with its chalk-white houses and the final scaffoldings of some nearly finished buildings, stretched out beneath a clear February sun; a stream of carriages was passing at a rattling pace through this gleam of light, which traversed the damp shadow of the old Saint-Roch quarter; and, between the Rue de la Michodière and the Rue de Choiseul, there was a great tumult, the crushing of a crowd excited by a month’s advertising, their eyes in the air, gaping at the monumental façade of The Ladies’ Paradise, inaugurated that Monday, on the occasion of a grand show of white goods.

The bright new masonry displayed a vast development of polychromatic architecture, relieved by gildings, announcing the tumult and sparkle of the business inside, and attracting attention like a gigantic window-display all aglow with the liveliest colors. In order not to neutralize the show of goods, the decoration of the ground floor was of a sober description; the base of sea-green marble; the corner pillars and the supporting columns were covered with black marble, the severity of which was relieved by gilded medallions; and the rest of plate-glass, in iron sashes, nothing but glass, which seemed to open up the depths of the halls and galleries to the full light of day. But as the floors ascended, the tones became brighter. The frieze on the ground floor was decorated with a series of mosaics, a garland of red and blue flowers, alternating with marble slabs, on which were cut the names of goods, running all round, encircling the colossus. Then the base of the first floor, made of enameled bricks, supported the large windows, as high as the frieze, formed of gilded escutcheons, with the arms of the towns of France, and designs in terra-cotta, the enamel of which reproduced the bright colored flowers of the base. Then, right at the top, the entablature blossomed forth like the ardent florescence of the entire façade, the mosaics and the faience reappeared with warmer colorings, the zinc gutters were carved and gilded, while along the acroteria ran a nation of statues, representing the great industrial and manufacturing cities, their delicate silhouettes standing out against the sky. The spectators were especially astonished at the sight of the central door, also decorated with a profusion of mosaics, faience, and terra-cotta, and surmounted by an allegorical group, the new gilding of which glittered in the sun: Woman dressed and kissed by a flight of laughing cupids.

About two o’clock the police were obliged to make the crowd move on, and to look after the carriages. The palace was built, the temple raised to the extravagant folly of fashion. It dominated everything, covering a whole district with its shadow. The scar left on its flank by the demolition of Bourras’s hovel had already been so skillfully cicatrized that it would have been impossible to find the place formerly occupied by this old wart — the four façades now ran along the four streets, without a break in their superb isolation. Since Baudu’s retirement, The Old Elbeuf, on the other side of the way, had been closed, walled up like a tomb, behind the shutters that were never now taken down; little by little the cab-wheels had splashed them, posters covered them up and pasted them together, a rising tide of advertising, which seemed like the last shovelful of earth thrown over the old-fashioned commerce; and, in the middle of this dead frontage, dirtied by the mud from the street, discolored by the refuse of Paris, was displayed, like a flag planted over a conquered empire, an immense yellow poster, quite wet, announcing in letters two feet high the great sale at The Ladies’ Paradise. It was as if the colossus, after each enlargement, seized with shame and repugnance for the black old quarter, where it had modestly sprung up, and that it had later on slaughtered, had just turned its back to it, leaving the mud of the narrow streets in its track, presenting its upstart face to the noisy, sunny thoroughfare of new Paris.

As it was now represented in the engraving of the advertisements, it had grown bigger and bigger, like the ogre of the legend, whose shoulders threatened to pierce the clouds. In the first place, in the foreground of the engraving, were the Rue du Dix-Décembre, the Rue de la Michodière, and the Rue de Choiseul, filled with little black figures, and spread out immoderately, as if to make room for the customers of the whole world. Then came a bird’s eye view of the buildings themselves, of an exaggerated immensity, with their roofings which described the covered galleries, the glazed courtyards in which could be recognized the halls, the endless detail of this lake of glass and zinc shining in the sun. Beyond, stretched forth Paris, but Paris diminished, eaten up by the monster: the houses, of a cottage-like humility in the neighborhood of the building, then dying away in a cloud of indistinct chimneys; the monuments seemed to melt into nothing, to the left two dashes for Notre-Dame, to the right a circumflex accent for the Invalides, in the background the Panthéon, ashamed and lost, no larger than a lentil. The horizon, crumbled into powder, became no more than a contemptible frame-work, as far as the heights of Châtillon, out into the open country, the vanishing expanse of which indicated how far reached the state of slavery.