The Ladies' Paradise (BBC tie-in) (Oxford World's Classics) (38 page)

They fell silent again. She would have preferred him to be furious, swearing, banging his fists; the sight of the old man
speechless and crushed made her heart bleed. But he gradually recovered, and started shouting again.

‘A thousand francs, you don’t turn that sort of money down … You’ll all go. Go on then, leave me on my own. Yes, on my own, do you hear? There’s one person who’ll never give in … And tell them I’ll win my case, even if I have to put my last shirt on it!’

Denise was not leaving Robineau until the end of the month. She had seen Mouret again, and everything was settled. One evening she was just going to go up to her room when Deloche, who was standing under an archway on the look-out for her, stopped her as she walked past. He was very happy; he had just heard the great news, the whole shop was talking about it, he said. And he gaily related to her the gossip of the counters.

‘You know, the girls in the ladieswear department are full of it!’

Then, breaking off, he said:

‘By the way, you remember Clara Prunaire … Well! It seems that the governor has … D’you follow me?’

He had become quite red. Denise, very pale, exclaimed:

‘Monsieur Mouret!’

‘Strange taste, isn’t it?’ he went on. ‘A woman who looks like a horse … That little thing from the lingerie department whom he had twice last year was at least nice. Anyway, it’s his business.’

Back in her room, Denise began to feel faint. It was no doubt because she had climbed the stairs too quickly. Leaning on the window-sill, she had a sudden vision of Valognes, of the empty street with its mossy paving stones which she used to see from her room as a child; and she was filled with desire to live there again, to take refuge in the oblivion and peace of the country. Paris irritated her; she hated the Ladies’ Paradise, she couldn’t think why she had agreed to go back there. She was sure to suffer there again; she was already suffering from some nameless malaise since hearing Deloche’s stories. And suddenly, for no reason, a flood of tears forced her to leave the window. She cried for a long time before finding a little courage with which to go on living.

The next day, at lunch-time, Robineau sent her on an errand, and as she was passing by the Vieil Elbeuf and saw that
Colomban was alone in the shop, she pushed open the door. The Baudus were having lunch; the sound of knives and forks could be heard at the far end of the little hall.

‘You can come in,’ said the shop assistant, ‘they’re having lunch.’

But she motioned to him to be silent and drew him into a corner. Lowering her voice, she said:

‘It’s you I want to talk to … Haven’t you any heart? Can’t you see that Geneviève loves you, and that it’s killing her?’

She was shaking all over; the previous night’s fever had taken possession of her again. Startled and amazed at this sudden attack, he could think of nothing to say.

‘Don’t you understand?’ she went on. ‘Geneviève knows that you love someone else. She told me so, she sobbed like a child … Oh! the poor girl! She doesn’t weigh much now, I can tell you! You should see how thin her arms are! It’s enough to make you cry … You can’t leave her to die like that!’

Finally, completely overwhelmed, he spoke.

‘But she isn’t ill, you’re exaggerating… I can’t see it myself… Besides, it’s her father who’s putting off the wedding.’

Denise sharply pointed out that this was a lie. She had sensed that the slightest insistence on the part of the young man would have persuaded her uncle. As to Colomban’s surprise, it was not feigned: he had really never noticed that Geneviève was slowly dying. It was a very unpleasant discovery for him. As long as he had remained unaware of it, he had not had very much to reproach himself with.

‘And who for?’ Denise went on. ‘For someone who just isn’t worth it! Don’t you know what sort of person you’re in love with? I didn’t want to hurt your feelings before, I’ve often avoided answering your endless questions … Well, she goes with everybody, she couldn’t care less about you, you’ll never have her; or perhaps you’ll have her like all the others, once, in passing.’

He listened to her, very pale; and at each sentence she threw in his face through clenched teeth, his lips trembled slightly. She was giving way to a rage of which she had been unaware, and had become cruel.

‘Anyway,’ she said with a final cry, ‘she’s with Monsieur Mouret, if you want to know!’

Her voice was choking, and she had become paler than he was. They looked at each other.

Then he stammered:

‘I love her.’

Denise felt ashamed. Why was she talking to the boy in this way, and why had she got so excited? She remained mute; the simple reply he had just given resounded in her heart like the distant sound of bells and deafened her. ‘I love her, I love her,’ the words continued to re-echo. He was right, he couldn’t marry anyone else.

As she turned round she saw Geneviève on the threshold.

‘Be quiet!’ she said quickly.

But it was too late, Geneviève must have heard. All the blood had left her face. Just at that moment a customer opened the door—it was Madame Bourdelais, one of the last faithful customers of the Vieil Elbeuf, where she found hard-wearing articles; Madame de Boves had followed the fashion and gone over to the Paradise long ago, and even Madame Marty, completely conquered by the seductive displays opposite, did not come any more. Geneviève was forced to step forward to say in her flat voice:

‘What does madam require?’

Madame Bourdelais wanted to see some flannel. Colomban took down a roll from the shelf, Geneviève showed her the material; and so both of them, their hands cold, found themselves brought together behind the counter. Meanwhile Baudu came out last from the little dining-room, following his wife, who had gone to sit down at the cash-desk. At first he did not interfere in the sale; he had smiled at Denise, and remained standing, looking at Madame Bourdelais.

‘That’s not pretty enough,’ she was saying. ‘Show me what you have that’s stronger.’

Colomban took down another roll. There was a silence. Madame Bourdelais examined the material.

‘And how much is it?’

‘Six francs, madam,’ Geneviève replied.

The customer made a gesture of surprise. ‘Six francs! But they’ve got the same thing opposite at five francs!’

A shadow passed over Baudu’s face. He could not help intervening, very politely. No doubt madam had made a mistake; the material should have been sold at six francs fifty, it was impossible to sell it at five francs. She must be thinking of some other material.

‘No, no,’ she repeated, with the obstinacy of a middle-class woman who prided herself on being an expert.

‘It’s the same material. It may even be a little thicker.’

The argument became quite heated. Baudu, his face becoming bilious, made an effort to continue smiling. His resentment against the Ladies’ Paradise was bursting within him.

‘Really,’ said Madame Bourdelais in the end. ‘You’ll have to treat me better than that, or I shall go across the road, like the others.’

At that he lost his head and, shaking with pent-up rage, shouted:

‘Very well! Go across the road then!’

She stood up, deeply offended, and left without looking back, saying:

‘That’s just what I’m going to do, sir.’

They were dumbfounded. The governor’s violence had startled them all. He himself was still frightened and trembling at what he had just said. The phrase had slipped out against his will, in an outburst of long pent-up resentment. And the Baudus now stood there, motionless, their arms sagging, watching Madame Bourdelais as she crossed the street. She seemed to them to be carrying away their fortune. When she went through the high doorway of the Paradise, at her leisurely pace, when they saw her disappear in the crowd, they felt as if something had been wrenched from them.

‘There goes another one they’re taking away from us!’ murmured the draper.

Then, turning towards Denise, of whose re-engagement he was aware, he said:

‘You too, they’ve taken you back … Well, I don’t blame you for it. Since they’ve got the money, they’ve got the power.’

Just at that moment, Denise, still hoping that Geneviève had not been able to overhear Colomban, was whispering in her ear:

‘He loves you. Cheer up!’

But, in a very low, heart-broken voice, the girl replied:

‘Why lie to me? Look! He can’t help it, he’s always looking over there … I know full well that they’ve stolen him from me, just as they’ve robbed us of everything else.’

She sat down on the seat at the cashier’s desk, beside her mother. The latter had no doubt guessed the fresh blow her daughter had received, for her eyes travelled anxiously from her to Colomban, and then back to the Paradise again. It was true, it was stealing everything from them: from the father, his money; from the mother, her dying child; from the daughter, a husband for whom she had waited ten years. Faced with this doomed family, Denise, whose heart was flooded with compassion, felt for a moment that she was perhaps wicked to go back. Wasn’t she once more going to assist the machine which was crushing the poor? But it was as if she was being swept along by some invisible force; she felt that she was not doing wrong.

‘Bah!’ Baudu resumed, in an attempt to give himself more courage, ‘we shan’t die of it! If we lose one customer, we’ll find two more from somewhere else … Listen, Denise: I’ve got seventy thousand francs here, and they’re going to give that Mouret of yours some sleepless nights … Come on, everybody! Don’t look as if you were at a funeral!’

But he could not cheer them up, and he himself relapsed into black despair; there they all stood, staring at the monster, attracted by it, obsessed by it, utterly preoccupied by their misfortune. The work was almost finished; the scaffolding had been taken away from the front of the building, and a whole section of the colossal edifice was now visible, with its white walls and large, light windows. Along the pavement, which was at last open to traffic again, eight vans were lined up and were being loaded one after the other by porters outside the dispatch office. In a ray of sunlight which ran along the street, the green door panels, picked out in yellow and red, were sparkling like mirrors, sending blinding reflections into the furthest depths of the Vieil Elbeuf. The drivers, dressed in black and with a dignified bearing,
were holding in the horses, superb teams, tossing their silver bits as they waited. Each time a van was loaded, there was a resounding rumble on the paving stones, which made the small neighbouring shops shake.

And then, faced with this triumphal procession which they had to suffer twice a day, the Baudus’ hearts finally broke. The father’s spirits sank as he wondered where this continual stream of goods could be going; while the mother, made ill by her daughter’s suffering, went on looking without seeing, her eyes drowned with great tears.

O
N
Monday, 14 March, the Ladies’ Paradise inaugurated its new building with a grand display of summer fashions, which was to last for three days. Outside, a bitter wind was blowing, and the passers-by, surprised by this return of winter, were hurrying along, buttoning up their overcoats. Meanwhile, the small shops in the neighbourhood were in a ferment of excitement; and the pale faces of the small tradesmen could be seen pressed against their windows, busy counting the first carriages which were drawing up outside the new main entrance in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin. This entrance, as high and deep as the porch of a church, surmounted by a group representing Industry and Commerce shaking hands in the midst of an array of symbolic emblems, was sheltered by a vast awning whose fresh gilding seemed to light up the pavements with a flash of sunlight. To the right and left stretched the shop-fronts, still blindingly white, going round the corners into the Rue Monsigny and the Rue de la Michodière, occupying the whole block except on the side of the Rue du Dix-Décembre, where the Crédit Immobilier was going to build. When the small tradespeople raised their heads they saw, along the whole length of this barracks-like extension, great piles of goods visible through the plate-glass windows which, from the ground floor to the second floor, opened up the shop to the public gaze. This enormous block, this colossal bazaar, blotted out their sky, and seemed to them to have something to do with the cold which was making them shiver behind their icy counters.

Meanwhile, from six o’clock onwards, Mouret was there, giving his final orders. In the centre, on a straight line from the main entrance, a wide gallery ran from one end of the shop to the other, flanked on the right and left by two narrower galleries, the Monsigny Gallery and the Michodière Gallery. The courtyards had been glazed in and transformed into halls; and iron staircases rose from the ground floor, while iron bridges had been thrown across from one end to the other on both floors. The architect, who happened to be intelligent, a young man in love with modernity,
had only used stone for the basements and the corner pillars, and then had used iron for the rest of the framework, with columns supporting the assemblage of beams and girders. The counter-arches of the flooring and the internal partitions were of brick. Space had been gained everywhere, light and air entered freely, and the public circulated with ease beneath the bold curves of the wide-spaced trusses. It was the cathedral of modern business, strong and yet light, built for vast crowds of customers. In the central gallery on the ground floor, after the bargains near the door, came the tie, glove, and silk departments; the Monsigny Gallery was occupied by the household linen and the printed cotton goods, the Michodière Gallery by the haberdashery, hosiery, cloth, and woollen departments. Then, on the first floor, there were the ready-made clothes, lingerie, shawls, lace, and other new departments, while the bedding, carpets, and furnishing materials, all the bulky goods and those which were difficult to handle, had been relegated to the second floor. By this time there were thirty-nine departments and eighteen hundred employees, of whom two hundred were women. A whole world was springing up amidst the life echoing beneath the high metal naves.
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