The Ladies' Paradise (BBC tie-in) (Oxford World's Classics) (58 page)

Geneviève, short of breath, her hands still wandering over the folds of the blanket, did not take her eyes off her.

‘No, thank you, I don’t need anything … I only wanted to embrace you.’

Her eyes filled with tears. At this Denise quickly bent down and kissed her on the cheeks, shuddering as she felt the fire of those hollow cheeks against her lips. But the sick girl had seized her, and was clasping her and holding on to her in a desperate embrace. Then she glanced at her father.

‘Would you like me to stay?’ Denise repeated. ‘Is there nothing I can do for you?’

‘No, no.’

Geneviève was still staring in the direction of her father, who was standing with a dazed look and a lump in his throat. Finally he understood, and withdrew without saying a word; they listened to his heavy footsteps as he went downstairs.

‘Tell me, is he still with that woman?’ the sick girl asked immediately, seizing her cousin’s hand, and making her sit on the edge of the bed. ‘Yes, I wanted to see you. You’re the only person who can tell me … They’re living together, aren’t they?

Denise, taken by surprise by these questions, had to admit the truth and blurted out the rumours which were circulating in the shop. Clara, who had grown tired of this lad who had now become a nuisance to her, had closed her door to him; and Colomban, in despair and with the humility of a beaten dog, was following her about everywhere, trying to obtain an occasional
meeting with her. It was said that he was going to get a job at the Louvre.

‘If you love him so much, he may still come back to you,’ Denise continued, trying to lull the dying girl with this last hope. ‘Get better quickly; he’ll admit his mistake and marry you.’

Geneviève interrupted her. She had been listening with her whole being, with dumb passion which had made her raise herself up. But she fell back again immediately.

‘No, don’t say any more, I know it’s all over … I don’t say anything, because I hear Papa weeping, and I don’t want to make Mamma more ill than she is. But I’m going, you see, and I was calling for you last night because I was afraid I would go before daylight… And to think he’s not even happy!’

When Denise protested, assuring her that her condition was not as serious as she thought, Geneviève cut her short again, and suddenly threw back the blanket with the pure gesture of a virgin who, in death, has nothing more to hide. Uncovered to her waist, she murmured:

‘Look at me! Isn’t it all over?’

Trembling, Denise moved away from the bed as if afraid of destroying the girl’s pitiful nakedness with a breath. It was the end of the flesh, a bride’s body worn out with waiting, which had returned to the frail childishness of its earliest years. Slowly Geneviève covered herself again, repeating:

‘You can see I’m no longer a woman … It would be wrong still to want him.’

They both fell silent. They continued to look at each other, finding nothing more to say. It was Geneviève who went on:

‘There’s no need to stay here, you’ve got your work to attend to. And thank you. I was tormented by not knowing; now I’m satisfied. If you see him again, tell him I forgive him … Farewell, dear Denise. Kiss me, it’s the last time.’

Denise kissed her, protesting:

‘No, no, don’t lose heart, you need care and attention, that’s all’

But the sick girl shook her head obstinately. She was smiling; she knew for certain. And as her cousin finally turned towards the door, she said:

‘Wait a minute, knock with this stick for Papa to come up … I’m too afraid to be on my own.’

Then, when Baudu arrived in the dismal little room where he would sit for hours, she put on a cheerful air and called to Denise:

‘Don’t come tomorrow, there’s no point. I’ll expect you on Sunday; you can spend the afternoon with me.’

The next day, at six o’clock in the morning, Geneviève died, after four hours of frightful agony. The funeral fell on a Saturday, in gloomy weather and with a black sky weighing down on the shivering city. The Vieil Elbeuf, draped with a white pall, lit up the street with a patch of white; and the candles, burning in the dim light, looked like stars drowning in twilight. Artificial wreaths and a big bouquet of white roses covered the coffin—a narrow child’s coffin, which was placed in the dark alley beside the shop, level with the pavement, and so close to the gutter that passing carriages had already splashed the hangings. The whole neighbourhood was oozing with damp, exuding a smell of musty cellars, while there was a continual bustle of passers-by on the muddy pavement.

Denise had been there since nine o’clock, to keep her aunt company. But, as the procession was about to leave, Madame Baudu, no longer weeping but with her eyes inflamed by tears, asked Denise to follow the coffin and watch over her uncle, whose silent despair and almost insane grief was causing the family great concern. Downstairs, the girl found the street full of people. The small tradespeople of the neighbourhood wanted to show their sympathy to the Baudus; and their eagerness to do so was also a kind of demonstration against the Ladies’ Paradise, which they held responsible for Geneviève’s lingering death. All the monster’s victims were there: Bédoré and his sister, the hosiers from the Rue Gaillon; the Vanpouille brothers, the furriers, Deslignières the fancy-goods dealer, and Piot and Rivoire the furniture dealers; even Mademoiselle Tatin the linen draper and Quinette the glover, who had been swept away long ago by bankruptcy, had made a point of coming, the former from the Batignolles and the latter from the Bastille, where they had been forced to take jobs in other people’s shops. As they waited for the
hearse, which had been held up because of some misunderstanding, these people, all dressed in black, walked up and down in the mud, glancing up in hatred at the Paradise, whose bright windows and gay displays seemed an insult to the Vieil Elbeuf, whose mourning appearance was casting a pall of gloom over the other side of the street. The faces of a few inquisitive assistants had appeared behind the windows; but the colossus was maintaining the indifference of a machine going full steam ahead, oblivious to the deaths it may cause on the way.

Denise looked round for her brother Jean. Finally she caught sight of him outside Bourras’s shop, and she went over to tell him to walk close to his uncle and support him if he had difficulty in walking. For some weeks now Jean had been rather serious, as if tormented by some anxiety. That day, squeezed into a black frock-coat, now well established and earning twenty francs a day, he seemed so dignified and so sad that his sister was quite struck by it, for she had not suspected that he loved his cousin so much. She had wanted to spare Pépé any needless distress and so had left him with Madame Gras, planning to collect him in the afternoon and take him to see his uncle and aunt.

Meanwhile the hearse had still not arrived and Denise, very upset, was watching the candles burning when she was startled by a familiar voice behind her. It was Bourras. He had called over a chestnut-seller, who was installed opposite in a little booth that formed part of a wine merchant’s shop, and was saying to him:

‘Hey, Vigouroux, can you do something for me? I’m closing the shop for a little while … If anyone comes, can you tell them to come back? But don’t worry, no one will come.’

Then he took up his position on the edge of the pavement, waiting like the others. Denise, feeling rather embarrassed, had glanced at his shop. He was letting it go now; in the window there was nothing but a pitiful array of rotting umbrellas and walking-sticks blackened by the gas. The improvements he had made, the light green paint, the mirrors, the gilded signboard, were all cracking and collecting dirt already, presenting a picture of the rapid and depressing decay of sham luxury plastered on top of ruins. But even though the old cracks were reappearing and the spots of damp were visible again beneath the gilding, the
house was still stubbornly standing, stuck on to the side of the Ladies’ Paradise like some shameful wart which, although it had cracked and come to a head, refused to fall off.

‘Ah! The scoundrels!’ growled Bourras. ‘They won’t even let her be taken away!’

The hearse, which had finally arrived, had just been run into by one of the Paradise’s vans which, its varnished doors projecting their starry radiance in the mist, was disappearing at a brisk trot, pulled by two magnificent horses. The old shopkeeper cast a fiery sideways glance at Denise from beneath his bushy eyebrows.

The procession moved off slowly, splashing through the puddles amid the silence made by the cabs and omnibuses which had suddenly stopped to let them pass. When the coffin, draped in white, crossed the Place Gaillon, dark glances from the procession were cast once more in the direction of the windows of the great shop, where only two salesgirls had rushed to look out, glad of the distraction. Baudu was following the hearse with heavy, mechanical steps; he had refused with a gesture to take the arm of Jean, who was walking close beside him. Then, after the people bringing up the rear on foot, came three funeral carriages. As they were cutting across the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, Robineau, very pale, and looking greatly aged, ran up to join the procession.

At Saint-Roch a great many women were waiting, the small shopkeepers of the neighbourhood who had feared there would be a crush at the house of the deceased. The demonstration was turning into a riot; and when, after the service, the procession started off again once more all the men followed, although it was a long walk from the Rue Saint-Honoré to the Montmartre Cemetery. They had to go up the Rue Saint-Roch once more, and pass the Ladies’ Paradise for the second time. It was like an obsession: the girl’s pathetic body was carried round the big shop, as if she had been the first victim to fall under fire in time of revolution. At the door some red flannel was flapping in the wind like flags and a display of carpets was bursting out in a flowering of enormous blood-red roses and full-blown peonies.

Meanwhile Denise had got into a carriage, torn by bitter anxieties and her heart aching with such sadness that she no
longer had the strength to walk. Just then there was a halt in the Rue du Dix-Décembre, opposite the scaffolding of the new shop-front, which was still obstructing the traffic. Then she noticed old Bourras lagging behind, limping along under the very wheels of the carriage in which she was sitting alone. He would never get as far as the cemetery, she thought. He raised his head and looked at her. Then he got into the carriage.

‘It’s these damned legs of mine,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t you draw back like that. It isn’t you we detest!’

She found him friendly but gruff, as he always had been in the past. He was grumbling, declaring that that old devil Baudu must be really tough to go on walking like that in spite of having suffered such blows. The procession had resumed its slow progress; and, leaning forward, she could see her uncle obstinately following the hearse with his heavy gait, which seemed to set the muffled, laborious pace of the procession. Then she sank back in her corner and listened to the endless complaints of the old umbrella dealer, to the accompaniment of the slow, melancholy swaying of the carriage.

‘The police ought to keep public thoroughfares clear! They’ve been blocking up our streets for more than eighteen months with their new shop-front; only the other day another man was killed there. Never mind! When they want to expand in the future they’ll have to throw bridges across the streets … They say you’ve got two thousand seven hundred employees, and that the turnover this year will reach a hundred million! A hundred million! Just imagine! A hundred million!’

Denise had nothing to say in reply. The procession was just turning into the Rue de la Chaussée-d’Antin, where it was held up by a group of carriages. Bourras went on, his eyes vacant, as if he was dreaming out loud. He still couldn’t understand the triumph of the Ladies’ Paradise, but he acknowledged the defeat of the old-fashioned shopkeepers.

‘Poor Robineau’s done for, he’s got the look of a drowning man. And the Bédorés and the Vanpouilles, they can’t keep going any more; they’re like me, their legs are worn out. Deslignières will die from a stroke; Piot and Rivoire have had jaundice. We make a pretty sight—a lovely procession for the poor child! It must be funny for the people watching to see this
string of failures going past… And it seems that the whole process is going to continue. The scoundrels are creating departments for flowers, millinery, perfume, shoes, and I don’t know what else. Grognet, the perfumer in the Rue de Gramont, might as well pack up, and I wouldn’t give ten francs for Naud’s shoe-shop in the Rue d’Antin. The plague’s spread as far as the Rue Sainte-Anne, where Lacassagne at the feather and flower shop, and Madame Chadeuil, whose hats are so well known, will be swept away within two years … And after them, there’ll be others, it’ll go on and on! Every business in the neighbourhood will go the same way. When counter-jumpers start selling soap and galoshes, they’re quite capable of wanting to sell fried potatoes. The world’s really going quite mad!’

The hearse was now crossing the Place de la Trinité and, from the dark corner of the carriage where Denise, lulled by the funeral pace of the procession, was listening to the old shopkeeper’s endless lamentations, she could see the coffin already going up the slope of the Rue Blanche, as they came out of the Rue de la Chaussée-d’Antin. Behind her uncle, who was trudging along blindly and dumbly like a stunned ox, she seemed to hear the trampling of a herd of cattle being led to the slaughterhouse, the destruction of the shops of a whole district, the small traders squelching along in their down-at-heel shoes, trailing ruin through the black mud of Paris. Bourras, meanwhile, was speaking in an even more hollow voice, as if slowed down by the steep incline of the Rue Blanche.

‘As for me, I’m done for … But I’m hanging on to him all the same, and I won’t let go. He’s just lost another appeal. It’s cost me a fortune: nearly two years of lawsuits and solicitors and barristers! It doesn’t matter, he won’t go underneath my shop; the judges have decided that work of that sort could never be considered as justified repairs. Just imagine, he was talking of creating, underneath me, a specially lit room where people could see the colours of materials by gaslight and which would have connected the hosiery and drapery departments! And he’s furious about it; he can’t accept that an old crock like me won’t get out of his way, when everyone else goes down on their knees as soon as he shows them his money. Never! I won’t! They’d better get that straight. It’s very likely that I’ll be destroyed in the
process. Since I’ve had to contend with the bailiffs, I know the scoundrel’s looking into my debts, no doubt so as to play a dirty trick on me. But it doesn’t matter, he says yes, I say no, and I’ll always say no, by God! Even when they nail me up in my little box like that poor girl over there.’