Complete Works of Emile Zola (706 page)

“Hullo! is that you?” said Mouret, all at once, recognizing Paul de Vallagnosc whom a messenger had conducted to him. “No, no, you are not in my way. Besides, you’ve only to follow me if you want to see everything, for today I stay at the breach.”

He still felt anxious. No doubt there were plenty of people, but would the sale prove to be the triumph he hoped for? However, he laughed with Paul, carrying him off gaily.

“It seems to be picking up a bit,” said Hutin to Favier. “But somehow I’ve no luck; there are some days that are precious bad, my word! I’ve just made another miss, that old frump hasn’t bought anything.”

And he glanced towards a lady who was walking off, casting looks of disgust at all the goods. He was not likely to get fat on his thousand francs a year, unless he sold something; as a rule he made seven or eight francs a day commission, which gave him with his regular pay an average of ten francs a day. Favier never made much more than eight, and there was this animal taking the bread out of his mouth, for he had just sold another dress — a cold-natured fellow who had never known how to amuse a customer! It was exasperating.

“Those chaps over there seem to be doing very well,” remarked Favier, speaking of the salesmen in the hosiery and haberdashery departments.

But Hutin, who was looking all round the place, suddenly asked: “Do you know Madame Desforges, the governor’s sweetheart? Look! that dark woman in the glove department, who is having some gloves tried on by Mignot.” He stopped, then resumed in a low tone, as if speaking to Mignot, on whom he continued to keep his eyes: “Oh, go on, old man, you may pull her fingers about as much as you like, that won’t do you any good! We know your conquests!”

There was a rivalry between himself and the glove-man, the rivalry of two handsome fellows, who both affected to flirt with the lady-customers. As a matter of fact they had neither had any real conquests to boast about. Mignot lived on the legend of a police superintendent’s wife who had fallen in love with him, whilst Hutin had really conquered a lace-maker who had got tired of wandering about in the doubtful hotels in the neighborhood; but they invented a lot of mysterious adventures, leading people to believe in all sorts of appointments made by titled ladies, between two purchases.

“You should get hold of her,” said Favier, in his sly, artful way.

“That’s a good idea!” exclaimed Hutin. “If she comes here I’ll let her in for something extensive; I want a five-franc piece!”

In the glove department quite a row of ladies were seated before the narrow counter covered with green velvet and edged with nickel silver; and the smiling shopmen were heaping up before them the flat boxes of a bright red, taken out of the counter itself, and resembling the ticketed drawers of a secrétaire. Mignot especially was bending his pretty doll-like face over his customer, his thick Parisian voice full of tender inflections. He had already sold Madame Desforges a dozen pairs of kid gloves, the Paradise gloves, one of the specialities of the house. She then took three pairs of Swedish, and was now trying on some Saxon gloves, for fear the size should not be exact.

“Oh! quite perfect, madame!” repeated Mignot. “Six and a quarter would be too large for a hand like yours.”

Half lying on the counter, he was holding her hand, taking the fingers one by one, slipping the glove on with a long, renewed, and persistently caressing air, looking at her as if he expected to see in her face the signs of a voluptuous joy. But she, with her elbow on the velvet counter, her wrist raised, gave him her fingers with the unconcerned air with which she gave her foot to her maid to allow her to button her boot. For her he was not a man; she employed him for such private work with the familiar disdain she showed for the people in her service, without looking at him even.

“I don’t hurt you, madame?”

She replied “No,” with a shake of the head. The smell of the Saxon gloves — that savage smell as of sugared musk — troubled her as a rule; and she sometimes laughed about it, confessing her taste for this equivocal perfume, in which there is a suspicion of the wild beast fallen into some girl’s powder-box. But seated at this commonplace counter she did not notice the smell of the gloves, it raised no sensual feeling between her and this salesman doing his work.

“And what next, madame?”

“Nothing, thanks. Be good enough to carry the parcel to the pay-desk No. 10, for Madame Desforges.”

Being a constant customer, she gave her name at a paydesk, and had each purchase sent there without wanting a shopman to follow her. When she had gone away, Mignot turned towards his neighbor and winked, and would have liked him to believe that wonderful things had just taken place.

“By Jove! I’d like to dress her all over!” said he, coarsely.

Meanwhile, Madame Desforges continued her purchases. She turned to the left, stopping in the linen department to procure some dusters; then she walked round the shop, going as far as the woollen department at the further end of the gallery. As she was satisfied with her cook, she wanted to make her a present of a dress. The woollen department overflowed with a compact crowd, all the lower middle-class women were there, feeling the stuff, absorbed in mute calculations; and she was obliged to sit down for a moment. The shelves were piled up with great rolls of stuff which the salesmen were taking down one by one, with a sudden pull. They were beginning to get confused with these encumbered counters, on which the stuffs were mixing up and tumbling over each other. It was a rising tide of neutral tints, heavy woollen tones, iron-greys, and blue-greys, with here and there a Scotch tartan, and a blood-red ground of flannel breaking out. And the white tickets on the pieces were like a shower of rare white flakes falling on a black December soil.

Behind a pile of poplin, Liénard was joking with a tall girl without hat or bonnet, a work-girl, sent by her mistress to match some merino. He detested these big-sale days, which tired him to death, and he endeavored to shirk his work, getting plenty of money from his father, not caring a fig about the business, doing just enough to avoid being dismissed.

“Listen to me, Mademoiselle Fanny,” he was saying; “you are always in a hurry. Did the striped vicugna do the other day? I shall come and see you, and ask for my commission.”

But the girl escaped, laughing, and Liénard found himself before Madame Desforges, whom he could not help asking: “What can I serve you with, madame?”

She wanted a dress, not too dear but yet strong. Liénard, with the view of sparing his arms, which was his principal care, manoeuvred to make her take one of the stuffs already unfolded on the counter. There were cashmeres, serges, vicugnas, and he declared that there was nothing’ better to be had, they never wore out. But none of these seemed to satisfy her. On one of the shelves she had observed a blue serge, which she wished to see. He made up his mind at last, and took down the roll, but she thought it too rough. Then he showed her a cheviot, some diagonal, some greys, every sort of woollens, which she felt out of curiosity, for the pleasure of doing so, decided at heart to take no matter what. The young man was thus obliged to empty the highest shelves; his shoulders cracked, the counter had disappeared under the silky grain of the cashmeres and poplins, the rough nap of the cheviot, and the tufty down of the vicugna; there were samples of every material and every tint. Though she had not the least wish to buy any, she asked to see some grenadine and some Chambéry gauze. Then, when she had seen enough, she said:

“Oh! after all, the first is the best; it’s for my cook. Yes, the serge, the one at two francs.” And when Liénard had measured it, pale with suppressed anger, she added: “Have the goodness to carry that to pay-desk No. 10, for Madame Desforges.”

Just as she was going away, she recognized Madame Marty close to her, accompanied by her daughter Valentine, a tall girl of fourteen, thin and bold, who was already casting a woman’s covetous looks on the goods.

“Ah! it’s you, dear madame?”

“Yes, dear madame; what a crowd — eh?”

“Oh! don’t speak of it, it’s stifling. And such a success! Have you seen the oriental saloon?”

“Superb — wonderful!”

And amidst the pushing and crushing of the growing crowd of modest purses eagerly seeking the cheap lines in the woollen goods, they went into ecstasies over the exhibition of carpets. Then Madame Marty explained she was looking for some material for a mantle; but she was not quite decided; she wanted to see some check patterns.

“Look, mamma,” murmured Valentine, “it’s too common.”

“Come to the silk department,” said Madame Desforges, “you must see their famous Paris Paradise.”

Madame Marty hesitated for a moment. It would be very dear, and she had faithfully promised her husband to be careful! She had been buying for an hour, quite a pile of articles were following her already: a muff and some cuffs and collars for herself, some stockings for her daughter. She finished by saying to the shopman who was showing her the checks:

“Well — no; I’m going to the silk department; you’ve nothing to suit me.”

The shopman took the articles and walked before the ladies.

In the silk department there was also a crowd, the principal crush being opposite the inside display, arranged by Hutin, and to which Mouret had given the finishing touches. It was at the further end of the hall, around one of the small wrought-iron columns which supported the glass roof, a veritable torrent of stuffs, a puffy sheet falling from above and spreading out down to the floor. At first stood out the light satins and tender silks, the satins à la Reine and Renaissance, with the pearly tones of spring water; light silks, transparent as crystals — Nile-green, Indian-azure, May-rose, and Danube-blue. Then came the stronger fabrics: marvellous satins, duchess silks, warm tints, rolling in great waves; and right at the bottom, as in a fountain-basin, reposed the heavy stuffs, the figured silks, the damasks, brocades, and lovely silvered silks in the midst of a deep bed of velvet of every sort — black, white, and colored — skillfully disposed on silk and satin grounds, hollowing out with their medley of colors a still lake in which the reflex of the sky seemed to be dancing. The women, pale with desire, bent over as if to look at themselves. And before this falling cataract they all remained standing, with the secret fear of being carried away by the irruption of such luxury, and with the irresistible desire to jump in amidst it and be lost.

“Here you are, then!” said Madame Desforges, on finding Madame Bourdelais installed before a counter.

“Ah! good-morning!” replied the latter, shaking hands with the ladies. “Yes, I’ve come to have a look.”

“What a prodigious exhibition! It’s like a dream. And the oriental saloon! Have you seen the oriental saloon?”

“Yes, yes; extraordinary!”

But beneath this enthusiasm, which was to be decidedly the fashionable note of the day, Madame Bourdelais retained her practical housekeeper’s coolness. She was carefully examining a piece of Paris Paradise, for she had come on purpose to take advantage of the exceptional cheapness of this silk, if she found it really advantageous. She was doubtless satisfied with it, for she took twenty-five yards, hoping it would be sufficient to make a dress for herself and a cloak for her little girl.

“What! you are going already?” resumed Madame Desforges. “Take a walk round with us.”

“No, thanks; they are waiting for me at home. I didn’t like to risk bringing the children into this crowd.”

And she went away, preceded by the salesman carrying the twenty-five yards of silk, and who led her to pay-desk No. 10, where young Albert was getting confused with all the demands for bills with which he was besieged. When the salesman was able to approach, after having inscribed his sale on the debit-note, he called out the item, which the cashier entered in a register; then it was checked over, and the leaf torn off the salesman’s book of debit-notes was stuck on a file near the receipting stamp.

“One hundred and forty francs,” said Albert.

Madame Bourdelais paid and gave her address, for having come on foot she did not wish to be troubled with a parcel. Joseph had already got the silk behind the pay-desk, and was tying it up; and the parcel, thrown into a basket on wheels, was sent down to the delivery department, where all the goods in the shop seemed to be swallowed up with a sluice-like noise.

Meanwhile, the block was becoming so great in the silk department that Madame Desforges and Madame Marty could not at first find a salesman disengaged. They remained standing, mingling with the crowd of ladies who were looking at the silks and feeling them, staying there hours without making up their minds. But the Paris Paradise was a great success; around it pressed one of those crowds which decides the fortune of a fashion in a day. A host of shopmen were engaged in measuring off this silk; one could see, above the customers’ heads, the pale glimmer of the unfolded pieces, in the continual coming and going of the fingers along the oak yard measures hanging from brass rods; one could hear the noise of the scissors cutting the silk, without ceasing, as the sale went on, as if there were not enough shopmen to suffice for all the greedy outstretched hands of the customers.

“It really isn’t bad for five francs twelve sous,” said Madame Desforges, who had succeeded in getting hold of a piece at the edge of the table.

Madame Marty and her daughter experienced a disappointment. The newspapers had said so much about it, that they had expected something stronger and more brilliant. But Bouthemont had just recognized Madame Desforges, and in order to get in the good graces of such a handsome lady, who was supposed to be all-powerful with the governor, he came up, with his rather coarse amiability. What! no one was serving her! it was unpardonable! He begged her to be indulgent, for really they did not know which way to turn. And he went to look for some chairs amongst the neighboring skirts, laughing with his good-natured laugh, full of a brutal love for the sex, which did not seem to displease Henriette.

“I say,” murmured Favier, on going to take some velvet from a shelf behind Hutin, “there’s Bouthemont making up to your mash.”