Complete Works of Emile Zola (728 page)

“Make haste! it’s intolerable!” cried Hutin to Favier, who had just returned from showing his customer to the pay-desk. “When that lady is here you never seem to finish. She doesn’t care a fig for you!”

“She cares a deuced sight more for me than I do for her!” replied the vexed salesman.

But Hutin threatened to report him to the directors if he did not show more respect for the customers. He was getting terrible, of a morose severity, since the department had conspired together to get him into Robineau’s place. He even showed himself so intolerable, after the promises of good-fellowship, with which he had formerly warmed his colleagues, that the latter were now secretly supporting Favier against him.

“Now, then, no back answers,” replied Hutin sharply. “Monsieur Bouthemont wishes you to show some light designs in silks.”

In the middle of the department, an exhibition of summer silks lighted up the hall with an aurora-like brilliancy, like the rising of a star, in the most delicate tints possible: pale rose, tender yellow, limpid blue, the entire gamut of Iris. There were silks of a cloudy fineness, surahs lighter than the down falling from the trees, satined pekins soft and supple as a Chinese virgin’s skin. There were, moreover, Japanese pongees, Indian tussores and corahs, without counting the light French silks, the thousand stripes, the small checks, the flowered patterns, all the most fanciful designs, which made one think of ladies in furbelows, walking about, in the sweet May mornings, under the immense trees of some park.

“I’ll take this, the Louis XIV. with figured roses,” said Madame Desforges at last.

And whilst Favier was measuring it, she made a last attempt with Bouthemont, who had remained near her.

“I’m going up to the ready-made department to see if there are any travelling cloaks. Is she fair, the young lady you were talking about?”

The manager, who felt rather anxious on finding her so persistent, merely smiled. But, just at that moment, Denise went by. She had just passed on to Liénard, who had charge of the merinoes, Madame Boutarel, that provincial lady who came up to Paris twice a year, to scatter all over The Ladies’ Paradise the money she scraped together out of her housekeeping. And as Favier was about to take up Madame Desforges’s silk, Hutin, thinking to annoy him, interfered.

“It’s quite unnecessary, Mademoiselle Denise will have the kindness to conduct this lady.”

Denise, quite confused, at once took charge of the parcel and the debit-note. She could never meet this young man face to face without experiencing a feeling of shame, as if he reminded her of a former fault; and yet she had only sinned in her dreams.

“But, tell me,” said Madame Desforges, in a low tone, to Bouthemont, “isn’t it this awkward girl? He has taken her back, then? But it is she, the heroine of the adventure!”

“Perhaps,” replied the head of department, still smiling, and fully decided not to tell the truth.

Madame Desforges then slowly ascended the staircase, preceded by Denise; but she had to stop every two or three steps to avoid being carried away by the descending crowd. In the living vibration of the whole building, the iron supports seemed to stagger beneath the weight, as if continually trembling from the breath of the crowd. On each stair was a dummy, strongly fixed, displaying some garment: a costume, cloak, or dressing-gown; and it was like a double row of soldiers for some triumphal march-past, with the little wooden arm like the handle of a poniard, stuck into the red swan-skin, which gave a bloody appearance to the stump of a neck crowning the whole.

Madame Desforges was at last reaching the first storey, when a still greater surging of the crowd forced her to stop once more. She had now, beneath her, the departments on the ground-floor, with the press of customers she had just passed through. It was a new spectacle, a sea of heads fore-shortened, concealing the bodices, swarming with a busy agitation. The white price tickets now appeared but so many thin lines, the promontory of flannels cut through the gallery like a narrow wall; whilst the carpets and the embroidered silks which decked the balustrades hung at her feet like processional banners suspended from the gallery of a church. In the distance, she could perceive the angles of the lateral galleries, as from the top of a steeple one perceives the corners of the neighboring streets, with the black spots of the passers-by moving about. But what surprised her above all, in the fatigue of her eyes blinded by the brilliant pell-mell of colours, was, when she lowered her lids, to feel the crowd more than ever, by its dull noise like the rising tide, and by the human warmth that it exhaled. A fine dust rose from the floor, laden with the odor of woman, the odor of her linen and her bust, of her skirts and her hair, an invading, penetrating odor, which seemed to be the incense of this temple raised for the worship of her body.

Meanwhile Mouret, still standing up before the reading-room with De Vallagnosc, was inhaling this odor, intoxicating himself with it, and repeating: “They are quite at home. I know some who spend the whole day here, eating cakes and writing their letters. There’s only one thing more to do, and that is, to find them beds.”

This joke made Paul smile, he who, in the ennui of his pessimism, continued to think the crowd stupid in thus running after a lot of gew-gaws. Whenever he came to give his old comrade a look up, he went away almost vexed to see him so full of life amidst his people of coquettes. Would not one of them, with shallow brain and empty heart, teach him one day the stupidity and uselessness of existence? That very day Octave seemed to lose some of his admirable equilibrium; he who generally inspired his customers with a fever, with the tranquil grace of an operator, was as though seized by the passion with which the establishment was gradually burning. Since he had caught sight of Denise and Madame Desforges coming up the grand staircase, he had been talking louder, gesticulating against his will; and, whilst affecting not to turn his face towards them, he became more and more animated as he felt them drawing nearer. His face got redder, his eyes had a little of that rapture with which the eyes of his customers ultimately vacillated.

“You must be robbed fearfully,” murmured De Vallagnosc, who thought the crowd looked very criminal.

Mouret threw his arms out. “My dear fellow, it’s beyond all imagination.”

And, nervously, delighted at having something to talk about, he gave a number of details, related cases, and classified the subjects. In the first place, there were the professional thieves; these women did the least harm of all, for the police knew everyone of them. Then came the kleptomaniacs, who stole from a perverse desire, a new sort of nervous affection which a mad doctor had classed, proving the results of the temptation provided by the big shops. In the last place must be counted the women in an interesting condition, whose robberies were of a special order. For instance, at the house of one of them, the superintendent of police had found two hundred and forty-eight pairs of pink gloves stolen from every shop in Paris.

“That’s what makes the women have such funny eyes here, then,” murmured DeVallagnosc; “I’ve been watching them with their greedy, shameful looks, like mad creatures. A fine school for honesty!”

“Hang it!” replied Mouret, “though we make them quite at home, we can’t let them take away the goods under their mantles. And sometimes they are very respectable people. Last week we had the sister of a chemist, and the wife of a councillor. We try and settle these matters.”

He stopped to point out Jouve, the inspector, who was just then looking sharp after a woman in the family way, down below at the ribbon counter. This woman, whose enormous belly suffered a great deal from the pushing of the crowd, was accompanied by a friend, whose mission appeared to be to defend her against the heavy shocks, and each time she stopped in a department, Jouve did not take his eyes off her, whilst her friend near her ransacked the card-board boxes at her ease.

“Oh! he’ll catch her!” resumed Mouret; “he knows all their tricks.”

But his voice trembled, he laughed in an awkward manner. Denise and Henriette, whom he had ceased to watch, were at last passing behind him, after having had a great deal of trouble to get out of the crowd. He turned round suddenly, and bowed to his customer with the discreet air of a friend who does not wish to compromise a woman by stopping her in the middle of a crowd of people. But the latter, on the alert, had at once perceived the look with which he had first enveloped Denise. It must be this girl, this was the rival she had had the curiosity to come and see.

In the ready-made department, the young ladies were losing their heads. Two of them had fallen ill, and Madame Frédéric, the second-hand, had quietly given notice the previous day, and gone to the cashier’s office to take her money, leaving The Ladies’ Paradise all in a minute, as The Ladies’ Paradise itself discharged its employees. Ever since the morning, in spite of the feverish rush of business, everyone had been talking of this adventure. Clara, maintained in the department by Mouret’s caprice, thought it grand. Marguerite related how exasperated Bourdoncle was; whilst Madame Aurélie, greatly vexed, declared that Madame Frédéric ought at least to have informed her, for such hypocrisy had never before been heard of.

Although the latter had never confided in anyone, she was suspected of having given up the drapery business to marry the proprietor of some baths in the neighborhood of the Halles.

“It’s a travelling cloak that madame desires, I believe?” asked Denise of Madame Desforges, after having offered her a chair.

“Yes,” replied the latter, curtly, decided on being rude.

The new decorations of the department were of a rich severity: high carved oak cupboards, mirrors filling the whole space of the panels, and a red Wilton carpet, which stifled the continued movement of the customers. Whilst Denise was gone for the cloaks, Madame Desforges, who was looking round, perceived herself in a glass; and she continued contemplating herself. She must be getting old to be cast aside for the first-comer. The glass reflected the entire department with its commotion, but she only beheld her own pale face; she did not hear Clara behind her relating to Marguerite instances of Madame Frédéric’s mysterious ways, the manner in which she went out of her way night and morning to go through the Passage Choiseul, in order to make believe that she perhaps lived over the water.

“Here are our latest designs,” said Denise. “We have them in several colors.”

She laid out four or five cloaks. Madame Desforges looked at them with a scornful air, and became harsher at each fresh one she examined. Why those frillings which made the garment look so scanty? and the other one, square across the shoulders, one would have thought it had been cut out with a hatchet. Though it was for travelling she could not dress like a sentry-box.

“Show me something else, mademoiselle.”

Denise unfolded and folded the garments without the slightest sign of ill temper. And it was just this calm, serene patience which exasperated Madame Desforges still further. Her looks continually returned to the glass in front of her. Now that she saw herself there, close to Denise, she made a comparison. Was it possible that he should prefer this insignificant creature to herself? She now remembered that this was the girl she had formerly seen making her debut with such a silly figure, awkward as a peasant girl just arrived from her village. No doubt she looked better now, stiff and correct in her silk dress. But how puny, how common-place!

“I will show you some other models, madame,” said Denise, quietly.

When she returned, the scene began again. Then it was the cloth that was heavy and no good whatever. Madame Desforges turned round, raised her voice, endeavoring to attract Madame Aurélie’s attention, in the hope of getting the young girl a scolding. But Denise, since her return, had gradually conquered the department, and now felt quite at home in it; the first-hand had even recognized in her some rare and valuable qualities as a saleswoman — an obstinate sweetness, a smiling conviction. Therefore Madame Aurélie simply shrugged her shoulders, taking care not to interfere.

“Would you kindly tell me the kind of garment you require, madame?” asked Denise, once more, with her polite persistence, which nothing could discourage.

“But you’ve got nothing!” exclaimed Madame Desforges.

She stopped, surprised to feel a hand laid on her shoulder. It was Madame Marty, carried right through the establishment by her fever for spending. Her purchases had increased to such an extent, since the cravats, the embroidered gloves, and the red parasol, that the last salesman had just decided to place the whole on a chair, for it would have broken his arm; and he walked in front of her, drawing the chair along, on which was heaped up a pile of petticoats, napkins, curtains, a lamp, and three straw hats.

“Ah!” said she, “you are buying a travelling cloak.”

“Oh! dear, no,” replied Madame Desforges; “they are frightful.”

But Madame Marty had just noticed a striped cloak which she rather liked. Her daughter Valentine was already examining it. So Denise called Marguerite to clear the article out of the department, it being a model of the previous year, and the latter, at a glance from her comrade, presented it as an exceptional bargain. When she had sworn that they had lowered the price twice, that from a hundred and fifty francs, they had reduced it to a hundred and thirty, and that it was now at a hundred and ten, Madame Marty could not withstand the temptation of its cheapness. She bought it, and the salesman who accompanied her left the chair and the parcel, with the debit-notes attached to the goods.

Meanwhile, behind the ladies’ backs, and amidst the jostlings of the sale, the gossip of the department about Madame Frédéric still went on.

“Really! she had someone?” asked a little saleswoman, fresh in the department.

“The bath-man, of course! replied Clara. “Mustn’t trust those sly, quiet windows.

Then whilst Marguerite was debiting the cloak, Madame Marty turned her head, and designating Clara by a slight movement of the eyebrows, she whispered to Madame Desforges: “Monsieur Mouret’s caprice, you know!”