The Ladies' Paradise (BBC tie-in) (Oxford World's Classics) (29 page)

‘Baked rice, this is the end!’

‘Let’s have a pennyworth of glue!’ said Favier, helping himself.

Some liked it, others found it too sticky. Those who were reading remained silent, engrossed in the serial story in their papers, not even knowing what they were eating. They were all mopping their brows, for the small narrow cellar was filling up with reddish steam; while the shadows of the passers-by, like black stripes, were running continuously across the table-cloth.

‘Pass Deloche the bread,’ shouted a joker.

Everyone would cut himself a slice and then plunge the knife back in the loaf up to the hilt; and the bread was going round the table all the time.

‘Who’ll swap his dessert for my rice?’ asked Hutin.

When he had concluded this deal with a small, thin man, he tried to sell his wine as well; but no one wanted it, they thought it undrinkable.

‘As I was saying, Robineau’s back,’ he went on, in the midst of the general laughter and conversation. ‘Oh! It’s all getting very serious … You know, he leads the salesgirls astray! Yes, he gets neckties for them to sew!’

‘Quiet!’ murmured Favier. ‘They’re passing sentence on him!’

And with a glance he pointed out Bouthemont, who was walking between Mouret and Bourdoncle in the corridor; all three were absorbed in an animated, hushed conversation. The dining-room for section-managers and their deputies happened
to be just opposite. When Bouthemont had seen Mouret passing by he had got up from the table, having finished, and was telling him about all the trouble in his department, and how difficult he found it. The other two were listening to him, so far refusing to sacrifice Robineau, who was a first-class salesman and had been there since Madame Hédouin’s time. But when he came to the story of the neckties, Bourdoncle got angry. The man must be mad to act as a go-between for the salesgirls who wanted extra work. The shop paid them well enough for their time; if they worked at night for themselves it was obvious that they would do less work during the day in the shop; therefore they were robbing it, risking their health, which did not belong to them. The night was made for sleeping; they must all sleep, or they’d be kicked out!

‘Things are hotting up,’ Hutin remarked.

Each time the three men walked slowly past the dining-room the assistants watched them, and commented on their slightest gestures. It made them forget the baked rice, in which a cashier had just found a trouser button.

‘I heard the word “necktie”,’ said Favier. ‘Did you see how Bourdoncle’s face suddenly turned pale?’

Mouret shared his colleague’s indignation. A salesgirl reduced to working at night seemed to him to be an attack on the very organization of the Paradise. Which of them could be so stupid that she could not support herself on her profits from sales? But when Bouthemont named Denise he softened his tone and found excuses for her. Ah, yes! that poor little thing! She was still wet behind the ears and, so he’d been assured, had dependants to look after. Bourdoncle interrupted him, declaring that she must be dismissed on the spot. They would never do anything with such a plain girl, he’d always said so; he seemed to be satisfying a personal grudge. Mouret became embarrassed and pretended to laugh. Dear me! What a hard man he was! Couldn’t they forgive her, for once? They’d call her in and give her a scolding. The long and short of it was that Robineau was really to blame, for, being a senior assistant and knowing the ways of the shop, he should have stopped her from doing it.

‘Well! Now the governor is laughing!’ said Favier in astonishment, as the group went past the door again.

‘Good Lord!’ swore Hutin, ‘if they persist in saddling us with that Robineau of theirs, we’ll give them something to laugh about!’

Bourdoncle looked Mouret straight in the face. Then he simply made a gesture of contempt, as much as to say that he understood at last, and that it was idiotic. Bouthemont had resumed his complaints: the salesmen were threatening to leave, and there were some excellent men amongst them. But what appeared to make a greater impression on these gentlemen was the rumour of Robineau’s friendly relations with Gaujean: the latter, it was said, was urging his friend to set up his own business in the neighbourhood, and was offering him the most generous credit in order to make things difficult for the Ladies’ Paradise. There was a silence. Ah! So Robineau was dreaming of battle! Mouret had become serious; he pretended to be scornful, and avoided taking a decision, as if the affair was of no importance. They would see, they would speak to him. And he immediately began joking with Bouthemont, whose father had arrived two days earlier from his little shop in Montpellier, and had almost choked with amazement and indignation when he saw the enormous hall where his son reigned. They were still laughing about the old man who, when he had recovered his southern self-possession, had set about disparaging everything, maintaining that the drapery trade would soon be finished.

‘Here comes Robineau now,’ murmured Bouthemont. ‘I sent him to the stock-room to avoid anything unpleasant… I’m sorry to insist, but things have got to such a pitch that something’s got to be done.’

Robineau, who had come in, greeted them as he made his way to his table.

Mouret simply repeated:

‘All right, we’ll see about it.’

They left. Hutin and Favier were still waiting for them. When they did not see them reappear, they relieved their feelings. Was the management now going to come down to every meal like that to count how many mouthfuls they had? What fun it would be if they couldn’t even eat in peace! The truth of the matter was that they had just seen Robineau come in, and the governor’s good humour was making them anxious about the outcome of the
struggle they had set in motion. They lowered their voices, trying to think up new ways to annoy Robineau.

‘I’m starving!’ said Hutin out loud. ‘You leave the table even hungrier than when you arrived!’

And yet he had eaten two portions of preserves, his own and the one he had received for his helping of rice. Suddenly he exclaimed:

‘Damn it all! I’m going in for an extra helping! Victor, bring me some more preserves!’

The waiter was finishing serving the dessert. Then he brought the coffee, and those who took it gave him their fifteen centimes on the spot. Some of the salesmen had left and were dawdling along the corridor, looking for a dark corner in which to smoke a cigarette. The others remained slouched over the table cluttered up with greasy plates. They were rolling the breadcrumbs into pellets, going over the same stories again and again, in the midst of the smell of burnt fat which they no longer noticed and the sweltering heat which turned their ears red. The walls were oozing with moisture; slow asphyxiation was descending from the mouldy ceiling. Standing against the wall, Deloche, stuffed full of bread, was digesting in silence, looking up at the ventilator; his daily recreation, after lunch, was to watch the feet of the passers-by as they hurried along the pavement—feet cut off at the ankle, heavy shoes, elegant high boots, dainty women’s ankle-boots, a continual procession of live feet, without bodies and heads. On rainy days it was very dirty.

‘What! Already!’ cried Hutin.

A bell was ringing at the end of the corridor; they had to give up their places for the third meal service. The waiters were coming to wash the oilcloth with buckets of tepid water and big sponges. The dining-rooms were slowly emptying, and the salesmen were going back to their departments again, lingering on the stairs. In the kitchen the cook had again taken up his position between the pans of skate, beef, and sauce, armed with his forks and spoons, ready once more to fill the plates with the rhythmic movement of a well-regulated clock.

As Hutin and Favier were lagging behind they saw Denise coming down.

‘Monsieur Robineau is back, miss,’ Hutin said with mocking politeness.

‘He’s still having lunch,’ Favier added. ‘But if it’s urgent you can go in.’

Denise carried on without answering or turning round. However, when she passed the dining-room for section-managers and their assistants she could not help glancing in. Robineau was indeed there. She would try to speak to him in the afternoon; and she went on down the corridor to her table, which was at the other end.

The women ate separately, in two rooms reserved for them. Denise went into the first room. It was also an old cellar transformed into a refectory, but it had been fitted up more comfortably. On the oval table in the middle of the room the fifteen places were laid further apart, and the wine was in carafes; a dish of skate and a dish of beef with mustard sauce occupied the two ends of the table. Waiters in white aprons were serving the young ladies, which spared them the trouble of fetching their helpings themselves from the hatch. The management had considered this more seemly.

‘So you went all round?’ asked Pauline, who was already seated and was cutting herself some bread.

‘Yes,’ Denise replied, blushing. ‘I was accompanying a customer.’

She was lying. Clara nudged the salesgirl sitting next to her. What was the matter with the unkempt girl today? She seemed really strange. She kept getting letters from her lover in rapid succession; then she ran round the shop like a madwoman, pretending to be going on errands to the work-room, where she did not even put in an appearance. There was certainly something going on. Then Clara, eating her skate without distaste, with the indifference of a girl who in the past had been fed on rancid bacon, spoke of a horrible drama which was filling the newspapers.

‘Have you read about the man who slit his mistress’s throat with a razor?’

‘Of course!’ remarked a little assistant from the lingerie department, with a gentle, delicate face. ‘He found her with another man. Serve her right!’

But Pauline protested. What! Just because you didn’t love a man any longer, he had the right to slit your throat! What a mad idea! And breaking off and turning to the waiter, she said:

‘Pierre, you know I just can’t eat this beef… Tell them to do me something else, an omelette, nice and soft, if possible!’

As she always had something sweet in her pocket she took out some chocolate drops and started munching them with her bread while she waited.

‘A man like that isn’t very funny,’ Clara resumed. ‘And a lot of men get really jealous! Only the other day there was a workman who threw his wife down a well.’

She did not take her eyes off Denise, and seeing her grow pale she thought she had guessed what was the matter. Obviously, the little prude was terrified of being beaten by her lover, to whom she was probably being unfaithful. It would be funny if he came right into the shop in his pursuit of her, as she seemed to fear. But the conversation was changing, one of the girls was telling them how to take spots out of velvet. Then they talked about a play at the Gaité, in which some delightful little girls danced better than grown-ups. Pauline, momentarily saddened by the sight of her omelette, which was overdone, brightened up again when she found that it tasted quite nice after all.

‘Pass me the wine,’ she said to Denise. ‘You should order yourself an omelette.’

‘Oh! The beef’s enough for me,’ replied Denise, who, to avoid spending anything, always kept to the food provided by the shop, no matter how repulsive it was.

When the waiter brought the baked rice the girls protested. They had left it the week before, and had hoped it would not appear again. Denise, absent-minded and worried about Jean as a result of Clara’s stories, was the only one who ate it; they all watched her with an air of disgust. There was an orgy of extra dishes; they filled themselves up with preserves. In any case, they thought it was quite smart to pay for their food with their own money.

‘You know, the gentlemen have complained,’ said the delicate-looking girl from the lingerie department, ‘and the management has promised …’

She was interrupted by a burst of laughter, and their conversation now turned entirely to the management. They all had coffee, except Denise, who could not stand it, so she said. They lingered over their cups, the girls from the lingerie department dressed with lower middle-class simplicity in wool, those from the gown department in silk, their napkins tucked under their chins so as not to get stains on their dresses, like ladies who had come down to eat in the servants’ hall with their maids. They had opened the skylight of the ventilator to freshen the stifling, foul-smelling air, but they had to shut it again immediately, for the cab-wheels seemed to be going across the table.

‘Shh!’ breathed Pauline, ‘here’s that old fool!’

It was Jouve. He was fond of prowling about towards the end of the mealtime, when the girls were there. In any case, he supervised their dining-rooms. He would come in, eyes smiling, and go round the table; sometimes he would even chat with them, and ask if they had enjoyed their lunch. But, as he both bored them and made them feel uncomfortable, they would all hasten to get away. Although the bell had not yet rung, Clara was the first to disappear; others followed her. Soon only Denise and Pauline remained. The latter, having drunk her coffee, was finishing her chocolate drops.

‘Well!’ she said as she stood up, ‘I’m going to ask a waiter to fetch me some oranges … Are you coming?’

‘In a minute,’ answered Denise, who was nibbling a crust, determined to be the last to leave, so that she could tackle Robineau when she went upstairs again.

However, when she found herself alone with Jouve she felt uneasy, so she left the table. But seeing her go towards the door, he barred her way:

‘Mademoiselle Baudu …’

He stood before her, smiling with a paternal air. His thick grey moustache and crew-cut hair gave him a respectable military appearance, and he puffed out his chest, on which the red ribbon of his decoration was displayed.

‘What is it, Monsieur Jouve?’ she asked, reassured.

‘I saw you again this morning, talking upstairs, behind the carpets. You know it’s against the rules, and if I reported you … She’s very fond of you, your friend Pauline, isn’t she?’

His moustache quivered, his enormous nose, the powerful hooked nose of a man with the appetites of a bull, was aflame.