The Ladies' Paradise (BBC tie-in) (Oxford World's Classics) (18 page)

‘Pull your belt in,’ Madame Aurélie was repeating. ‘There, now you haven’t got a bulge at the back … And your hair, how do you make such a mess of it? It could look superb, if you wanted it to.’

It was, indeed, Denise’s only beauty. Ash-blonde in colour, it reached to her ankles; and when she did it up, it got in her way so much that she simply rolled it into a pile and held it in place with the strong teeth of a horn comb. Clara, very annoyed by this hair, tied up so untidily in its untamed grace, pretended to laugh at it. She had made a sign to a salesgirl from the lingerie department, a girl with a broad face and a friendly manner. The two departments, which were adjacent, were always on hostile terms; but these two girls sometimes got together to laugh at people.

‘Mademoiselle Cugnot, just look at that mane!’ repeated Clara, whom Marguerite was nudging with her elbow while pretending to choke with laughter.

But the girl from the lingerie department was not in a joking mood. She had been watching Denise for a little while, and she remembered what she had suffered herself during the first few months in her department.

‘Well, and so what?’ she said. ‘Not everyone’s got a mane like that!’

And she went back to the lingerie department, leaving the other two feeling abashed. Denise, who had heard everything, watched her go with a look of gratitude, while Madame Aurélie gave her a cash-book with her name on it, saying:

‘Well, tomorrow you’ll look smarter … And now, try to pick up the ways of the shop; wait your turn for selling. Today will be very hard; it’ll give us a chance to see what you can do.’

The department was still deserted, as very few customers went up to the dress departments at this early hour. The girls, standing straight and still, were saving their strength for the
exertions of the afternoon. Denise, intimidated by the thought that they were watching her first efforts, sharpened her pencil for the sake of something to do; then, imitating the others, she stuck it into her bosom, between the two buttonholes. She was trying to summon up all her courage, determined to conquer a position. The day before she had been told that she would start work
au pair,
in other words without a fixed salary; she would have only a percentage and a commission on the sales she made. But she hoped to earn twelve hundred francs in this way, for she knew that good saleswomen could make as much as two thousand when they tried. Her budget was regulated: a hundred francs a month would enable her to pay Pépé’s board and lodging and to keep Jean, who was not receiving a penny; she herself would be able to buy a few clothes and some linen. But, in order to reach this considerable sum, she would have to prove herself hardworking and strong, not take the ill will around her to heart, stand up for herself, and seize her share from her companions if necessary. As she was working herself up for the struggle, a tall young man who was passing by the department smiled at her; when she saw that it was Deloche, who had been engaged the day before in the lace department, she returned his smile, happy to rediscover this friendship, and seeing a good omen in his greeting.

At half-past nine a bell rang for the first lunch service. Then a fresh peal summoned people to the second. And still the customers did not come. The assistant buyer, Madame Frédéric, who with the gloomy stiffness of a widow took pleasure in predicting the worst, was swearing curtly that the day was lost; they would not see a soul, they might as well close the cupboards and go home; this prediction darkened the flat face of Marguerite, who was very grasping, whereas Clara, like a runaway horse, was already dreaming of an excursion to the woods at Verrières if the shop were to collapse. As for Madame Aurélie, she was walking about the empty department silent and grave, wearing her Caesar’s mask, like a general who bears the responsibility for victory or defeat.

At about eleven o’clock a few ladies appeared. Denise’s turn to serve was coming. Just at that moment a customer was pointed out.

‘That fat woman from the provinces, you know,’ murmured Marguerite.

She was a woman of forty-five who came to Paris from time to time from the depths of some out-of-the-way place. She saved up for months; then no sooner had she stepped out of the train than she would drop in at the Ladies’ Paradise and spend it all. She rarely bought anything by post, for she wanted to see the goods, and delighted in touching them, and even went so far as to buy up stocks of needles which, she said, cost the earth in her small town. The whole shop knew her, knew that her name was Boutarel, and that she lived in Albi, without caring any more about either her circumstances or her existence.

‘How are you, madam?’ graciously asked Madame Aurélie, who had stepped forward. ‘And what can we do for you? You will be attended to immediately.’

Then, turning round, she called:

‘Young ladies!’

Denise responded, but Clara had already sprung forward. Usually she was lazy about selling, not caring about money as she earned more, and with less effort, outside. But the idea of cheating the newcomer out of a good customer spurred her on.

‘Excuse me, it’s my turn,’ said Denise, indignantly.

With a stern look Madame Aurélie pushed her aside, murmuring:

‘There are no turns. I’m the only person who gives orders here. Wait until you know something before you serve our regular customers.’

The girl withdrew; and as tears were welling up in her eyes and she wanted to hide her over-sensitiveness, she turned her back, standing in front of the plate-glass windows and pretending to look out into the street. Were they going to prevent her from selling? Would they all conspire like that to deprive her of important sales? Fear for the future seized her; she felt crushed between all the different interests at play. Yielding to the bitterness of her abandonment, her forehead against the cold glass, she gazed at the Vieil Elbeuf opposite, thinking that she should have begged her uncle to keep her; perhaps he himself regretted his decision, for he had seemed very upset the day before. Now she was quite alone in this huge shop where no one loved her, where
she felt hurt and lost; Pépé and Jean, who had never left her side, were living with strangers; it was a cruel separation, and the two big tears she was holding back were making the street dance in a mist.

Meanwhile, the buzz of voices continued behind her.

‘This one makes me all bunched up,’ Madame Boutarel was saying.

‘Madam is mistaken,’ Clara was repeating. ‘The shoulders fit perfectly … Unless madam would rather have a pelisse than a coat.’

Denise gave a start. A hand had been placed on her arm, and Madame Aurélie was talking to her severely.

‘What’s this! You’re not doing anything now, you’re just watching the people going by? That won’t do at all!’

‘But if you won’t let me sell, ma’am …’

‘There’s other work for you, Mademoiselle Baudu. Begin at the beginning … Do the folding-up.’

In order to satisfy the few customers who had arrived, the cupboards had already had to be turned upside down; and the two long oak tables, on the left and right of the salon, were littered with a jumble of coats, pelisses, cloaks, clothes of every size and in every material. Without replying, Denise set about sorting them, folding them carefully and putting them away again in the cupboards. It was the humblest job for beginners. She did not protest any more, knowing that passive obedience was required of her, biding her time until the buyer would let her sell, as her original intention had seemed to be. She was still folding when Mouret appeared. It was a shock for her; she blushed, and once more felt overcome by her strange fear at the thought that he was going to speak to her. But he did not even see her, he no longer remembered the little girl whom the charming impression of the moment had induced him to support.

‘Madame Aurélie!’ he called in a curt voice.

He was a little pale, but his eyes were clear and resolute. On going round the departments he had just discovered that they were empty, and the possibility of defeat had suddenly occurred to him, in spite of his obstinate faith in luck. Of course, it was only eleven o’clock; he knew from experience that the crowd
never arrived before the afternoon. But certain symptoms were worrying him: at other sales there had been some activity from the morning onwards; furthermore, he could not see any of those hatless women, local customers, who usually dropped in on him as neighbours. Like all great captains when joining battle, he had been overcome by a feeling of superstitious weakness, in spite of his usual resolute attitude as a man of action. It would not go well, he was lost, and he could not have said why: he thought he could read his defeat on the very faces of the ladies who were passing.

At that moment Madame Boutarel, who always bought something, was leaving, saying:

‘No, you haven’t got anything I like … I’ll see, I’ll think about it.’

Mouret watched her go. Then, as Madame Aurélie ran up at his summons, he took her aside; they exchanged a few rapid words. She made a gesture that showed her anxiety; she was obviously replying that the sale was not warming up. For a moment they remained facing each other, overcome by the kind of doubt which generals hide from their troops. Then he said out loud, with a gallant air:

‘If you need more staff, take a girl from the work-room … She’d give you some help, after all.’

He continued with his inspection, in despair. Since the morning he had been avoiding Bourdoncle, whose anxious remarks irritated him. As he was leaving the lingerie department, where the sale was going even worse, he ran into him and had to put up with listening to his gloomy thoughts. Then, with a brutality which even his most senior employees were not spared in his black moments, he told him flatly to go to the devil.

‘Shut up, can’t you! Everything’s all right… I’ll end up by kicking out all the faint-hearted.’

Mouret, standing alone, planted himself beside the hall balustrade. From there he dominated the whole shop, for he had the mezzanine departments around him, and could look down into the ground-floor departments. Upstairs, the emptiness seemed heart-breaking to him: in the lace department an old lady was having all the boxes ransacked without buying anything; while in the lingerie department three good-for-nothing girls were sifting
slowly through some ninety-centime collars. Downstairs, under the covered arcades, in the shafts of light coming from the street, he noticed that the customers were becoming more numerous. It was a slow, broken procession, a stroll past the counters; women in jackets were crowding into the haberdashery and hosiery departments; but there was hardly anyone in the household linen or woollen goods departments. The page-boys, in their green uniform with shining brass buttons, their arms dangling, were waiting for customers to arrive. Now and again a shopwalker would pass by with a ceremonious air, very stiff in his white necktie. But what made Mouret’s heart ache most of all was the deathly silence of the hall: the light fell on it from above, filtered through a frosted glass roof, into a diffused white dust suspended over the silk department, which seemed to be sleeping amid the chilly silence of a chapel. An assistant’s footstep, a few whispered words, the rustle of a skirt, were the only sounds, muffled by the warmth from the heating apparatus. However, carriages were arriving: the sound of the horses suddenly coming to a halt could be heard, followed by the banging of the carriage doors. A distant hubbub was coming from the street—curious onlookers were jostling each other in front of the shop-windows, cabs were drawing up in the Place Gaillon, a crowd seemed to be approaching … But Mouret, seeing the idle cashiers leaning back in their chairs behind their cash-desk windows, and observing that the parcel-tables with their boxes of string and reams of blue packing-paper remained bare, was furious with himself for being afraid, and thought he could feel his great machine coming to a standstill and growing cold beneath him.

‘I say, Favier,’ murmured Hutin, ‘look at the governor up there … He doesn’t look very happy!’

‘This is a rotten shop!’ Favier replied. ‘When you think that I haven’t sold a thing yet!’

Both of them, while keeping on the look-out for customers, whispered remarks like this from time to time, without looking at each other. The other salesmen in the department were busy piling up lengths of Paris-Paradise, under Robineau’s orders; while Bouthemont, deep in conference with a thin young woman, seemed to be taking an important order in undertones. Around them the silks, on elegant, frail shelves, folded up in long
pieces of cream-coloured paper, were piled like strangely shaped pamphlets. Littering the counters were the fancy silks—watered silks, satins, velvets, looking like beds of mown flowers, a whole harvest of delicate and precious materials. It was the most elegant of all the departments, a veritable drawing-room, in which the goods were so ethereal that they seemed to be a kind of luxurious furnishing.

‘I must have a hundred francs for Sunday,’ Hutin resumed. ‘If I don’t make an average of twelve francs a day, I’m done for … I was counting on this sale.’

‘Good Lord! A hundred francs, that’s a bit steep,’ said Favier. ‘I only want fifty or sixty … You go in for expensive women, do you?

‘Oh no, old chap. It’s just that I did something silly. I made a bet and lost… So I’ve got to stand a dinner for five people, two men and three women … What an awful morning this is! I’ll offload twenty metres of Paris-Paradise on the first woman who passes!’

They went on talking for a few moments, telling each other what they had done the day before, and what they hoped to do in a week’s time. Favier backed horses; Hutin liked boating and music-hall singers. But they were both spurred on by the need for money; they dreamed of nothing but money, they fought for it from Monday to Saturday, and spent it all on Sunday. In the shop it was their sole preoccupation, a constant, pitiless struggle. And there was that cunning Bouthemont, who had just managed to grab hold of the woman sent by Madame Sauveur, that skinny woman he was chatting with! It would be a splendid deal, two or three dozen lengths of material, for the great dressmaker always gave good orders. And a moment earlier Robineau, too, had taken it into his head to do Favier out of a customer!