The Ladies' Paradise (BBC tie-in) (Oxford World's Classics) (20 page)

‘Oh! Don’t talk to me about it, it’s stifling. What a success! Have you seen the oriental hall?’

‘Superb! Amazing!’

And, elbowed and jostled by the growing mass of women who had little to spend and were rushing towards the inexpensive woollens, they went into ecstasies over the exhibition of carpets. Then Madame Marty explained that she was looking for some material for a coat; but she had not made up her mind, she wanted to see some woollen quilting.

‘But just look at it, mamma,’ murmured Valentine, ‘it’s too common.’

‘Come and look at the silks,’ said Madame Desforges. ‘You must see their famous Paris-Paradise.’

Madame Marty hesitated for a moment. It would be very expensive, and she had faithfully promised her husband that she would be careful! She had been buying for an hour already; quite a pile of articles were following her—a muff and ruching for herself, some stockings for her daughter. In the end she said to the assistant who was showing her the quilting:

‘Well, no! I’m going to the silk department… There’s really nothing here that I want.’

The assistant took the articles and walked ahead of the ladies.

The crowd had reached the silk department too. There was a tremendous crush before the interior display arranged by Hutin, to which Mouret had added the final touches. At the far end of
the hall, around one of the small cast-iron columns which supported the glass roof, material was streaming down like a bubbling sheet of water, falling from above and spreading out on to the floor. First, pale satins and soft silks were gushing out: royal satins and renaissance satins, with the pearly shades of spring water; light silks as transparent as crystal—Nile green, turquoise, blossom pink, Danube blue. Next came the thicker fabrics, the marvellous satins and the duchess silks, in warm shades, rolling in great waves. And at the bottom, as if in a fountain-basin, the heavy materials, the damasks, the brocades, the silver and gold silks, were sleeping on a deep bed of velvets—velvets of all kinds, black, white, coloured, embossed on a background of silk or satin, their shimmering flecks forming a still lake in which reflections of the sky and of the countryside seemed to dance. Women pale with desire were leaning over as if to look at themselves. Faced with this wild cataract, they all remained standing there, filled with the secret fear of being caught up in the overflow of all this luxury and with an irresistible desire to throw themselves into it and be lost.

‘So you’re here?’ said Madame Desforges, on finding Madame Bourdelais installed in front of a counter.

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

‘It’s wonderful, this display, isn’t it? It’s like a dream … And the oriental hall, have you seen the oriental hall?’

‘Yes, yes, extraordinary!’

But beneath this enthusiasm, which was certainly going to be the fashionable attitude of the day, Madame Bourdelais kept her composure as a practical housewife. She was carefully examining a piece of Paris-Paradise, for she had come solely to take advantage of the exceptional cheapness of this silk, if she found it really good value. She was clearly satisfied, for she ordered twenty-five metres, reckoning that it would easily be enough to make a dress for herself and a coat for her little girl.

‘What! You’re going already?’ Madame Desforges resumed. ‘Come and have a look round with us.’

‘No, thank you, they’re expecting me at home … I didn’t want to risk bringing the children in a crowd like this.’

And she went away preceded by the salesman carrying the twenty-five metres of silk; he conducted her to cash-desk No. 10, where young Albert was losing his head in the midst of all the requests for invoices with which he was besieged. When the salesman could get near him, he called out the sale he had made, after entering it with a pencil on his counterfoil book, and the cashier entered it in the register; then it was counter-checked, and the page torn out of the counterfoil book was stuck on an iron spike near the receipt stamp.

‘A hundred and forty francs,’ said Albert.

Madame Bourdelais paid and gave her address, for she had come on foot and did not want to be encumbered with a parcel. Joseph was already holding the silk behind the cash-desk and packing it up; and the parcel, thrown into a basket on wheels, was sent down to the dispatch department, where all the goods in the shop now seemed to be swallowed with a noise like a sluice.

Meanwhile, the congestion was becoming so great in the silk department that Madame Desforges and Madame Marty could not find a free assistant at first. They remained standing, mingling with the crowd of ladies who were looking at the materials and feeling them, remaining there for hours without making up their minds. The Paris-Paradise seemed destined for the greatest success of all, for it was attracting growing waves of enthusiasm, that sudden fever which sets a fashion in a single day. The salesmen were all occupied in measuring this silk; the pale light of the unfolded lengths could be seen above the customers’ hats, while fingers were moving constantly up and down the oak measuring-sticks hanging from brass rods; the noise of the scissors biting into the material could be heard, without a pause, as fast as it was unpacked, as if there were not enough arms to satisfy the greedy, outstretched hands of the customers.

‘It really isn’t bad for five francs sixty,’ said Madame Desforges, who had succeeded in getting hold of a piece from the edge of a table.

Madame Marty and her daughter Valentine were feeling disillusioned. The newspapers had talked about it so much that they had expected something bigger and more striking. But Bouthemont had just recognized Madame Desforges and, wishing to pay court to this beautiful creature who was reputed
to hold the governor completely in her power, he came up to her with his rather crude amiability. What! She was not being served! It was unpardonable! She must be indulgent, for they really didn’t know which way to turn. And he went to look for some chairs among the surrounding skirts, laughing with his good-natured laugh, which revealed his brutal love of women, and which Henriette did not, apparently, find unattractive.

‘I say,’ murmured Favier as he went to get a box of velvet from a shelf behind Hutin, ‘there’s Bouthemont making up to your special customer.’

Hutin had forgotten Madame Desforges, for he was beside himself with rage with an old lady who, having kept him for a quarter of an hour, had just bought a metre of black satin for a corset. At particularly busy times they took no notice of the roster; each salesman served customers as they arrived. He was replying to Madame Boutarel, who was finishing off her afternoon at the Ladies’ Paradise, where she had already spent three hours in the morning, when Favier’s warning gave him a start. Was he going to miss the governor’s girlfriend, out of whom he had sworn to make five francs? That would be the height of bad luck, for he had not yet made three francs for himself, in spite of all the skirts cluttering up the place!

Just then Bouthemont was calling out loudly:

‘Come on, gentlemen, someone this way!’

Hutin handed Madame Boutarel over to Robineau, who was not doing anything.

‘Here you are, madam, ask the assistant buyer … He’ll be able to help you better than I can.’

He rushed off and got the salesman who had accompanied the ladies from the woollens to hand Madame Marty’s articles over to him. Nervous excitement must have upset his delicate flair that day. Usually, the first glance told him if a woman would buy, and how much. Then he would dominate the customer, hurrying to get rid of her in order to move on to another, forcing her to make up her mind by persuading her that he knew what material she wanted better than she did.

‘What sort of silk, madam?’ he asked in his most courteous manner.

Madame Desforges had no sooner opened her mouth than he added:

‘I know, I’ve got just what you want.’

When the length of Paris-Paradise had been unfolded on a corner of the counter between piles of other silks, Madame Marty and her daughter drew nearer. Hutin, rather anxious, understood that it was a question of supplying them first of all. Words were being exchanged in hushed tones; Madame Desforges was advising her friend.

‘Oh! Absolutely,’ she murmured, ‘a silk at five francs sixty will never be equal to one at fifteen, or even ten.’

‘It’s very thin,’ Madame Marty was repeating. ‘I’m afraid it hasn’t got enough body for a coat.’

This remark made the salesman intervene. He had the exaggerated politeness of a man who cannot be mistaken.

‘But, madam, flexibility is the main quality of this silk. It doesn’t crease … It’s exactly what you want.’

Impressed by such assurance, the ladies fell silent. They had picked up the material again and were examining it once more when they felt a touch on their shoulders. It was Madame Guibal, who had been walking through the shop at a leisurely pace for at least an hour, feasting her eyes on the piled-up riches, without buying so much as a metre of calico. There was another outburst of chatter.

‘What! Is it you!’

‘Yes, it’s me, a bit knocked about though!’

‘Yes, I know. What a crowd, you can’t move … Did you see the oriental hall?’

‘Delightful!’

‘What an incredible success … Do wait a moment, we can go upstairs together.’

‘No, thank you, I’ve just come down.’

Hutin was waiting, hiding his impatience behind a smile which never left his lips. How much longer were they going to keep him there? Really, women had a nerve; it was just as if they were taking his money out of his pocket. Finally, Madame Guibal took her leave and continued her stroll, going round and round the great display of silks with an air of delight.

‘If I were you, I’d buy the coat ready-made,’ said Madame Desforges, coming back to the Paris-Paradise. ‘It’ll cost less.’

‘It’s true that what with the trimmings and having it made up …’ murmured Madame Marty. ‘And there’s more choice too.’

All three ladies had risen to their feet. Madame Desforges turned to Hutin and resumed:

‘Would you please take us to the ladieswear department?’

Unaccustomed to defeats of this kind, he was dumbfounded. What! the dark-haired lady wasn’t buying anything! His instinct had let him down, then! He abandoned Madame Marty, and concentrated on Henriette, trying his powers as a good salesman on her.

‘And you, madam, don’t you wish to see our satins and velvets? We have some remarkable bargains.’

‘No, thank you, another time,’ she replied coolly, not looking at him any more than she had at Mignot.

Hutin had to pick up Madame Marty’s things again, and walk ahead of them to show them to the ladieswear department. And he had the additional grief of seeing that Robineau was in the process of selling a large quantity of silk to Madame Boutarel. He certainly had lost his flair, he wouldn’t make a penny. Beneath his pleasant, polite manner there was the rage of a man who had been robbed and devoured by others.

‘On the first floor, ladies,’ he said, without ceasing to smile.

It was no longer easy to get to the staircase. A compact mass of heads was surging through the arcades, spreading out like an overflowing river into the middle of the hall. A real commercial battle was developing; the salesmen were holding the army of women at their mercy, passing them from one to another as if to see who could be quickest. The great afternoon rush-hour had arrived, when the overheated machine led the dance of customers, extracting money from their very flesh. In the silk department especially there was a sense of madness; the Paris-Paradise had attracted such a crowd that for several minutes Hutin could not advance a step; and when Henriette, half-suffocated, looked up, she glimpsed Mouret at the top of the stairs, for he always came back to the same place from where he could watch the victory. She smiled, hoping that he would come down and
extricate her. But he did not even recognize her in the crowd; he was still with Vallagnosc, busy showing him the shop, his face radiant with triumph. By now the commotion inside was muffling the sounds from the street; the rumbling of cabs and the banging of doors could no longer be heard; beyond the huge murmur of the sale there remained nothing but a sensation of the vastness of Paris, a city so enormous that it would always provide customers. In the still air, where the stifling central heating brought out the smell of the materials, the hubbub was increasing, made up of all sorts of noises—the continuous trampling of feet, the same phrases repeated a hundred times at the counters, gold clinking on the brass of the cash-desks, besieged by a mass of purses, the baskets on wheels with their loads of parcels falling endlessly into the gaping cellars. In the end everything became intermingled amidst the fine dust; it became impossible to recognize the divisions between the different departments: over there, the haberdashery seemed swamped; further on, in the linen department, a ray of sunlight coming through the window on the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin was like a golden arrow in the snow; while, in the glove and woollen departments, a dense mass of hats and hair hid the further reaches of the shop from view. Even the clothes of the crowd could no longer be seen, only headdresses, decked with feathers and ribbons, were floating on the surface; a few men’s hats made black smudges, while the pale complexions of the women, in the general fatigue and heat, were acquiring the transparency of camellias. Finally, thanks to some vigorous elbow-work, Hutin opened up a pathway for the ladies by walking ahead of them. But when she reached the top of the stairs Henriette could not find Mouret, who had just plunged Vallagnosc into the middle of the crowd to complete his bewilderment, and also because he felt the physical need to bathe in his own success. He became breathless with delight as he felt against his limbs a sort of long caress from all his customers.

‘To the left, ladies,’ said Hutin in a voice which was still courteous in spite of his growing exasperation.

Upstairs it was just as crowded. Even the furniture department, usually the quietest, was being invaded. The shawls, the furs, the underwear departments were teeming with people. As the ladies were going through the lace department, they again
came upon some people they knew. Madame de Boves was there with her daughter Blanche, both buried in the articles which Deloche was showing them. Hutin, parcel in hand, once more had to make a halt.