The Ladies' Paradise (BBC tie-in) (Oxford World's Classics) (19 page)

‘Oh! Him! We’ll have to get even with him,’ resumed Hutin, who took advantage of the slightest thing to stir up the department against the man whose position he coveted. ‘The buyer and assistant buyer aren’t meant to sell! Word of honour, my dear chap, if ever I become assistant buyer, you’ll see how good I’ll be to the rest of you!’

And the whole of his little Norman person, fat and jolly, was straining to exude all the good nature he could affect. Favier
could not help giving him a sideways look; but he maintained his phlegmatic air, and was content to reply:

‘Yes, I know … Personally, I’d be delighted.’

Then, seeing a lady approaching, he added under his breath:

‘Look out! Here’s one for you.’

She was a woman with a blotchy face, in a yellow hat and a red dress. Hutin guessed immediately that she was the sort of woman who would not buy anything. He quickly bent down behind the counter, pretending to do up one of his shoe-laces; hidden from view, he murmured:

‘No fear! Let someone else have her … Thanks very much! And lose my turn …!’.

However, Robineau was calling him.

‘Whose turn is it, gentlemen? Monsieur Hutin’s? Where’s Monsieur Hutin?’

And, as the latter was obviously not replying, it was the salesman who came after him on the roster who served the blotchy lady. She did, indeed, only want some patterns, together with the prices; and she kept the salesman for more than ten minutes, overwhelming him with questions. But Robineau had seen Hutin get up from behind the counter. And so when another customer arrived he interfered with a stern air and stopped the young man as he dashed forward.

‘Your turn has gone … I called you, and as you were there behind …’

‘But I didn’t hear, sir.’

‘That’s enough! Put your name down at the bottom … Come on, Monsieur Favier, it’s your turn.’

Favier, who was really very amused by the whole episode, apologized to his friend with a glance. Hutin, his lips pale, had turned his head away. What infuriated him was that he knew the customer very well; she was a charming blonde who often came to the department and whom the salesmen called among themselves ‘the pretty lady’, although they knew nothing about her, not even her name. She usually bought a great deal, would have her purchases carried to her carriage, and then would disappear. Tall, elegant, dressed with exquisite taste, she appeared to be very rich and to belong to the highest society.

‘Well, how was that tart of yours?’ Hutin asked Favier, when the latter came back from the cash desk, where he had accompanied the lady.

‘A tart?’ Favier replied. ‘No, she looks much too ladylike … She must be the wife of a stockbroker or a doctor, well, I don’t know, something like that.’

‘Oh, go on! she’s a tart… You can’t tell nowadays, they all have the airs of refined ladies!’

Favier looked at his cash-book.

‘It doesn’t matter!’ he went on, ‘I’ve stung her for two hundred and ninety-three francs. That means nearly three francs for me.’

Hutin pursed his lips, and vented his spleen on the cash-books: another crazy invention which was cluttering up their pockets! There was a secret rivalry between the two men. Favier, as a rule, pretended to keep in the background, to acknowledge Hutin’s superiority, so as to be free to attack him from behind. That was why Hutin was so upset about the three francs which a salesman he considered to be his inferior had pocketed so easily. Really, what a day! If it went on like that he would not earn enough even to buy soda water for his guests. And in the midst of the battle, which was now becoming fiercer, he walked round the counters, his tongue hanging out, wanting his share, even jealous of his superior, who was seeing the skinny young woman off, repeating to her as he did so:

‘Very well, it’s settled. Tell her I’ll do my best to obtain this favour from Monsieur Mouret.’

Mouret had left his post by the hall balustrade some time ago. Suddenly he reappeared at the top of the main staircase which led to the ground floor; from there he still commanded a view of the whole shop. His face had regained its colour, and it seemed larger now that his faith was being reborn at the sight of the crowd which was gradually filling the shop. At last the long-awaited rush had come, the afternoon crush of which he had for a moment despaired in his fever of anxiety; all the assistants were at their posts, and a last bell had just rung to signal the end of the third luncheon service; the disastrous morning, due no doubt to a shower at about nine o’clock, could still be made good, for the blue sky of the morning had regained its victorious gaiety. Now
that the mezzanine departments were coming to life, he had to stand back to make way for the women as they went upstairs in little groups to the lingerie and dresses; while behind him, in the lace and shawl departments, he could hear large sums being bandied about. But he was reassured above all by the sight of the ground-floor galleries. There was a crush of people in the haberdashery department; even the household linen and wool departments were overrun; the procession of shoppers was becoming denser, and almost all of them were wearing hats now—there were only a few bonnets of housewives who had arrived late. In the silk hall, under the pale light, ladies had taken off their gloves to feel pieces of Paris-Paradise, while talking in low voices. And he could no longer have any doubt about the sounds arriving from outside, the rattle of cabs, the banging of doors, the growing babble of the crowd. Beneath his feet he felt the machine being set in motion, warming up and coming to life again, from the cash-desks where there was the clink of gold, and the tables where the porters were hurrying to pack up the goods, down to the depths of the basement, where the dispatch department was filling up with the parcels sent down, shaking the whole shop with its subterranean rumbling. In the midst of the mob Jouve was walking about solemnly, on the look-out for thieves.

‘Hello! It’s you!’ said Mouret suddenly, recognizing Paul de Vallagnosc, whom a page-boy had brought to him. ‘No, no, you’re not disturbing me … And, in any case, you may as well follow me around if you want to see everything, because today I’ll be totally involved in the sale.’

He still felt anxious. There was no doubt that there were plenty of people, but would the sale be the triumph he had hoped for? Nevertheless, he was laughing with Paul and gaily led him away.

‘It seems to be picking up a bit,’ said Hutin to Favier. ‘But I’m not having any luck, some days are jinxed, honestly! I’ve just drawn another blank, that bitch didn’t buy anything from me.’

With his chin he indicated a woman who was walking off, casting looks of disgust at all the materials. He wouldn’t grow fat on his thousand francs a year if he didn’t sell anything; usually he made seven or eight francs a day in percentages or commission, which gave him with his regular pay an average of about ten
francs a day. Favier never earned much more than eight; and here was this animal taking the food out of his mouth, for he had just sold another dress. A cold-blooded fellow who had never known how to amuse a customer! It was exasperating!

‘The sockers and reelers look as if they’re raking it in,’ Favier murmured, referring to the salesmen in the hosiery and haberdashery departments.

But Hutin, who was looking all round the shop, suddenly asked: ‘Do you know Madame Desforges, the governor’s girlfriend? … That dark woman over there in the glove department, the one who’s having some gloves tried on by Mignot.’

He stopped and then, as if talking to Mignot, and without taking his eyes off him, he resumed:

‘Go on, go on, old man, give her fingers a good squeeze, it won’t do you any good! We know all about your conquests!’

There existed between him and the glove assistant the rivalry of two good-looking men, both of whom pretended to flirt with the customers. Neither of them could in fact boast of any real good fortune; Mignot lived on the myth of a police superintendent’s wife who had fallen in love with him, whereas Hutin had really made the conquest of a trimmer, in his department, who had got tired of hanging about the shady hotels in the neighbourhood; but they both invented a lot, letting people believe that they had mysterious adventures, rendezvous with countesses between purchases.

‘You should deal with her yourself,’ said Favier in his deadpan way.

‘That’s an idea!’ exclaimed Hutin. ‘If she comes here, I’ll get round her!’

In the glove department a whole row of ladies was seated in front of the narrow counter covered with green velvet with nickel-plated corners; the smiling assistants were stacking up in front of them flat, bright pink boxes, which they were taking out of the counter itself, like the labelled drawers of a filing cabinet. Mignot, in particular, was leaning forward with his pretty baby face, rolling his Rs like a true Parisian, his voice full of tender inflections. He had already sold Madame Desforges a dozen pairs of kid gloves, Paradise gloves, the shop’s speciality. She had then asked for three pairs of suede gloves. And she was now
trying on some Saxon gloves, for fear that the size was not right.

‘Oh! It’s absolutely perfect, madam!’ Mignot was repeating. ‘Six and three-quarters would be too big for a hand like yours.’

Half lying on the counter, he was holding her hand, taking her fingers one by one and sliding the glove on with a long, practised, and sustained caress; and he was looking at her as if he expected to see from her face that she was swooning with voluptuous joy. But she, her elbow on the edge of the velvet, her wrist raised, gave him her fingers with the same detached air with which she would give her foot to her maid to allow her to button her boots. He was not a man; she used him for such intimate services with the familiar disdain she showed for those in her employ, without even looking at him.

‘I’m not hurting you, madam?’

She replied in the negative, with a shake of the head.

The smell of Saxon gloves, that animal smell with a touch of sweetened musk, usually excited her; and she sometimes laughed about it, confessing her liking for this ambiguous perfume, like an animal in rut which has landed in a girl’s powder box. But standing at that commonplace counter she did not smell the gloves; they did not provoke any sensual feeling between her and the ordinary salesman simply doing his job.

‘Is there anything else you would like to see, madam?’

‘Nothing, thank you … Would you take that to cash-desk No. 10, for Madame Desforges.’

Being a regular customer, she gave her name at a cash-desk, and had each purchase sent there, so that she wasn’t followed there by an assistant. When she had left, Mignot turned towards his neighbour and winked, for he would have had him believe that wonderful things had just taken place.

‘It’s a pity she can’t wear gloves all over!’ he murmured crudely.

Meanwhile Madame Desforges was continuing her purchases. She turned to the left, stopping in the linen department to get some dusters; then she walked all round, going as far as the woollens at the end of the gallery.

As she was pleased with her cook, she wanted to make her a present of a dress. The woollen department was overflowing with a dense crowd; all the lower middle-class women were there
and were feeling the materials, absorbed in silent calculation; she had to sit down for a moment. The shelves were piled high with thick lengths of material, which the salesmen were taking down one by one, with a sudden pull. They were beginning to get quite confused among the cluttered counters, where the materials were mingling and overflowing. It was a rising tide of neutral tints, of the muted tones of wool, iron greys, yellowish-greys, blue-greys, with here and there a brilliant Scottish tartan, a blood-red background of flannel bursting out. And the white labels on the rolls were like a light shower of white snowflakes, speckling a black December soil.

Behind a pile of poplin Liénard was joking with a tall girl without a hat, a local seamstress sent by her employer to stock up with Merino. He hated these big sale days which made his arms ache, and, since he was largely kept by his father and did not care whether he sold or not, he tried to dodge work, doing just enough to avoid being dismissed.

‘You know, Mademoiselle Fanny,’ he was saying. ‘You’re always in a hurry … Did the Vicuña go well the other day? I’ll come and get my commission from you.’

But the seamstress was making her escape, laughing as she did so, and Liénard found himself facing Madame Desforges; he could not help asking her:

‘Can I help you, madam?’

She wanted a dress, inexpensive but hard-wearing. Liénard, with the aim of sparing his arms, which was his sole concern, manœuvred so as to make her take one of the materials already unfolded on the counter. There were cashmeres, serges, Vicuñas; he swore to her that there was nothing better, they never wore out. But none of them seemed to satisfy her. She had glimpsed a bluish serge twill on a shelf, and in the end he reluctantly decided to get it down; but she said it was too coarse. Next it was a Cheviot, some with diagonal stripes, some greys, and every variety of woollen material, which she was curious to touch for sheer pleasure, though she had already decided that she would just buy anything. So the young man was obliged to empty the highest shelves; his shoulders cracked, and the counter had disappeared beneath the silky grain of the cashmeres and poplins, the rough nap of the Cheviots, and the fluffy down of the Vicuñas. Every material and every shade was now on view.
She asked to be shown Grenadine and Chambéry gauze, though she did not have the slightest desire to buy any. Then, when she had had enough, she said:

‘Oh well! The first one was the best. It’s for my cook … Yes, the serge with the little dots, the one at two francs.’

And when Liénard, pale with suppressed anger, had measured it out, she said:

‘Will you take it to cash-desk No. 10 … For Madame Desforges.’

As she was going away she noticed Madame Marty nearby, accompanied by her daughter Valentine, a tall, lanky girl of fourteen, very uninhibited and already casting the guilty glances of a woman at the goods.

‘Ah! It’s you, my dear?’

‘Yes, dear … Quite a crowd, isn’t it?’