The Ladies' Paradise (BBC tie-in) (Oxford World's Classics) (43 page)

As the three ladies were walking off together, and Madame Marty, whose conscience was still troubling her, was again coming back to the work-table she did not need at all, Madame Guibal said to her in her calm voice:

‘Well! You can return it… Didn’t you just see? It’s so easy … Anyhow, let them send it to your house. You can put it in your drawing-room, and look at it; then, when you’re tired of it, bring it back.’

‘That’s a good idea!’ exclaimed Madame Marty. ‘If my husband gets too angry, I’ll return the whole lot.’

This was for her the supreme excuse; she no longer counted the cost but went on buying with the secret desire of keeping everything, for she was not the kind of woman who returns things.

At last they arrived at the dresses and suits. But, as Denise was about to hand over to the salesgirls the foulard purchased by Madame Desforges, the latter seemed to change her mind, and declared that she would definitely take one of the travel coats, the light grey one; and Denise had to wait obligingly in order to take her back to the ladieswear department. She was quite aware that what lay behind the capricious behaviour of this imperious customer was a desire to treat her like a servant; but she had sworn to herself that she would stick to her job, and maintained her calm manner in spite of her pounding heart and her rebellious pride. Madame Desforges bought nothing in the dress and suit department.

‘Oh, Mamma!’ said Valentine, ‘that little suit there, if it fits me …’

In a low voice Madame Guibal was explaining her tactics to Madame Marty. When she saw a dress she liked in a shop, she would have it sent to her; she would copy the pattern, and then return it. And Madame Marty bought the suit for her daughter, murmuring:

‘That’s a good idea! You’re most practical, my dear!’

They had had to abandon the chair. It had simply been left in the furniture department, beside the work-table. The weight was becoming too much for it, and the back legs were threatening to break; and it was decided that all the purchases should be centralized at one cash-desk, and from there sent down to the dispatch service.

Then the ladies, still accompanied by Denise, wandered around. They revisited all the departments. They seemed to take up all the space on the staircases and in the galleries. Every moment a fresh encounter held them up. Thus, they bumped into Madame Bourdelais and her three children again, near the reading-room. The children were loaded with parcels; Madeleine had a dress for herself, Edmond was carrying a collection of small shoes, while the youngest, Lucien, was wearing a new peaked cap.

‘You too!’ said Madame Desforges laughingly to her old school-friend.

‘Don’t talk to me about it!’ exclaimed Madame Bourdelais. ‘I’m furious. They get at you through your children now! You know, it isn’t as if I spend a lot on myself! But how can I say “no”
to these little ones who want everything? I came to show them round, and now I’m plundering the whole shop!’

Mouret, who was still there with Vallagnosc and Monsieur de Boves, was listening to her with a smile. She caught sight of him and complained to him gaily, but with a certain amount of real irritation, about the traps laid for mothers; the idea that she had just succumbed to the fevers aroused by advertising made her indignant; and he, still smiling, bowed, enjoying his triumph. Monsieur de Boves had manœuvred so as to get nearer to Madame Guibal, whom he finally followed, trying for a second time to lose Vallagnosc; but the latter, tired of the crowd, hastened to rejoin the Count. Once more Denise had stopped to wait for the ladies. She was standing with her back to them, and Mouret was pretending not to see her. From that moment on Madame Desforges, with the delicate flair of a jealous woman, no longer had any doubts. While he was complimenting her and walking a few steps at her side, like a gallant host, she was deep in thought, asking herself how she might convict him of his treachery.

Meanwhile, Monsieur de Boves and Vallagnosc, who were walking ahead with Madame Guibal, were arriving at the lace department. It was a luxurious room near the ladieswear department, lined with show-cases whose carved oak drawers had folding flaps. Spirals of white lace twined around the pillars, which were covered with red velvet; from one end of the room to the other were threaded lengths of guipure lace; while on the counters there were avalanches of big cards round which were wound Valenciennes, Malines, and needle-point lace. At the far end of the room two ladies were sitting before a transparency of mauve silk on to which Deloche was throwing some Chantilly; and they looked on in silence, unable to make up their minds.

‘I say!’ said Vallagnosc, in great surprise, ‘you said Madame de Boves wasn’t well… But there she is, standing over there with Mademoiselle Blanche.’

The Count could not help giving a start, casting a sideways glance at Madame Guibal as he did so.

‘Good heavens! So she is!’ he said.

It was very warm. The customers, who were suffocating, were pale-faced and shiny-eyed. It seemed as if all the seductions of the shop had been leading up to this supreme temptation, that
this was the hidden alcove where the customers were doomed to fall, the place of perdition where even the strongest succumbed. Hands were being plunged into the overflowing piles of lace, quivering with excitement from touching them.

‘It looks as if these ladies are ruining you,’ resumed Vallagnosc, amused by the encounter.

Monsieur de Boves made the gesture of a husband all the more sure of his wife’s common sense because he did not give her a penny. The Countess, having tramped through all the departments with her daughter without buying anything, had just ended up in the lace department in a rage of unsatisfied desire. Totally exhausted, she was leaning up against a counter. She was rummaging in the heap of lace; her hands were growing limp, and her shoulders appeared hot with fever. Then suddenly, as her daughter turned her head away and the salesman was walking off, she tried to slip a piece of Alençon under her coat. But she gave a start and dropped it, on hearing Vallagnosc’s voice saying gaily:

‘We’ve caught you, madam!’

For several seconds she remained speechless and extremely pale. Then she explained that, as she was feeling much better, she’d wanted to get a breath of air. When she at last noticed that her husband was with Madame Guibal, she completely recovered herself, and looked at them in such a dignified way that Madame Guibal felt obliged to say:

‘I was with Madame Desforges; these gentlemen ran into us.’

Just then the other ladies arrived. Mouret had accompanied them, and he detained them a moment longer in order to point out Jouve, who was still shadowing the pregnant woman and her friend. It was very odd; one couldn’t imagine the number of thieves that were arrested in the lace department. Madame de Boves, who was listening to him, could see herself—forty-five years old, well off, her husband in an important position—with a policeman on either side of her; and yet she felt no remorse, she was only thinking that she should have slipped the lace up her sleeve. In the mean time, Jouve had just made up his mind to apprehend the pregnant woman, having given up hope of catching her red-handed, but suspecting her of having filled her pockets with such sleight of hand that it had escaped him. But
when he had taken her aside and searched her, to his embarrassment he found nothing, not even a scarf or a button. The friend had disappeared. Suddenly he understood: the pregnant woman was a blind; it was the friend who did the stealing.

The story amused the ladies. Mouret, a little annoyed, merely said:

‘Old Jouve’s been had this time … But he’ll have his revenge.’

‘Oh!’ replied Vallagnosc, ‘I don’t think he’s up to it… In any case, why do you display so much merchandise? It serves you right if you’re robbed. You shouldn’t tempt poor defenceless women like that.’

This was the last word, and in the mounting fever of the shop it struck the jarring note of the day. The ladies were separating, going through the crowded departments for the last time. It was four o’clock, and the rays of the setting sun were entering obliquely through the wide bays at the front of the shop, lighting up from the side the glazed roofs of the halls; in this fiery brightness, the thick dust, raised from the morning onwards by the trampling of the crowd, was floating upwards, like a golden vapour. A sheet of fire was running through the great central gallery, making the staircases, the suspension bridges, and the hanging iron lacework stand out against a background of flames. The mosaics and the ceramics of the friezes were sparkling, the greens and reds of the paintwork were lit up by the fires from the gold so lavishly applied. It was as if the displays, the palaces of gloves and ties, the clusters of ribbons and lace, the tall piles of woollens and calicoes, the variegated flower-beds blossoming with light silks and foulards, were now burning in live embers. The mirrors were resplendent. The display of sunshades, curved like shields, was throwing off metallic glints. In the distance, beyond some long shadows, there were faraway, dazzling departments, teeming with a mob gilded by the sunshine.

In this final hour, in the midst of the overheated air, the women reigned supreme. They had taken the shop by storm, camping in it as in conquered territory, like an invading horde which had settled among the devastation of the goods. The salesmen, deafened and exhausted, had become their slaves, whom they treated with sovereign tyranny. Fat women were
pushing their way through the crowd. Thinner ones were standing their ground, becoming quite aggressive. All of them, their heads held high and their gestures offhanded, were at home there; they showed no civility to each other, but were making use of the shop to such an extent that they were even carrying away the dust from the walls. Madame Bourdelais, wanting to get back some of the money she had spent, had once again taken her three children to the buffet; the customers were now hurling themselves at it in fits of greed, and even the mothers were gorging themselves on Malaga; since the opening eighty litres of fruit juice and seventy bottles of wine had been drunk. After having bought her travel coat Madame Desforges had been presented with some pictures at the cash-desk; and she went away wondering how she could get Denise into her house and humiliate her in front of Mouret himself, so that she could watch their faces and confirm her suspicions. Finally, just as Monsieur de Boves was successfully losing himself in the crowd and disappearing with Madame Guibal, Madame de Boves, followed by Blanche and Vallagnosc, had had the whim to ask for a red balloon, although she had not bought anything. It was always like that; she would not go home empty-handed, she would win the friendship of her caretaker’s little girl with it. At the distribution counter they were starting on their fortieth thousand: forty thousand red balloons had taken flight in the hot air of the shop, a whole cloud of red balloons which were now floating from one end of Paris to the other, carrying up to heaven the name of the Ladies’ Paradise!

Five o’clock struck. Of all the ladies, Madame Marty and her daughter were the only ones to remain, in the final paroxysms of the sale. She could not tear herself away, dead tired though she was; she was held there by an attraction so strong that she kept retracing her steps needlessly, wandering through the departments with insatiable curiosity. It was the hour during which the mob, already excited by the advertisements, got completely out of hand. The sixty thousand francs spent on announcements in the newspapers, the ten thousand posters on walls, and the two hundred thousand catalogues which had been sent out had emptied the women’s purses and left their nerves suffering from the shock of their intoxication; they were still shaken by all Mouret’s
devices: the reduced prices, the system of ‘returns’, his constantly renewed attentions. Madame Marty was lingering by the auction tables, amid the hoarse cries of the salesmen, the clinking of gold from the cash-desks, and the rumble of parcels falling into the basements; once more she walked across the ground floor, through the household linen, the silk, the gloves, and the woollens. Then she went upstairs, again abandoning herself to the metallic vibration of the hanging staircases and suspension bridges, returning to the ladieswear, to the underwear, to the laces, even going as far as the second floor, to the heights of the bedding and furniture departments; and everywhere the salesmen, Hutin and Favier, Mignot and Liénard, Deloche, Pauline, and Denise, their legs nearly dropping off, were making a last effort, snatching victories out of the final fever of the customers. This fever had been gradually growing since the morning, like the intoxication exuded by the materials which were being handled. The crowd was ablaze under the fire of the five o’clock sun. By now Madame Marty had the animated, nervous face of a child that has drunk undiluted wine. She had come into the shop with her eyes clear and her skin fresh from the cold of the street and her sight and complexion had gradually become scorched by the spectacle of all that luxury, of those violent colours, the continual succession of which inflamed her passion. When she finally left, after saying that she would pay at home, terrified by the size of her bill, her features were drawn and she had the dilated eyes of a sick woman. She had to fight her way through the crowd at the door; people were killing each other for the bargains there. Then, outside on the pavement, when she had found her daughter, whom she had lost, the fresh air made her shiver, and she stood there frightened, unhinged by the neurosis caused by big shops.

That evening, as Denise was returning from dinner, a porter called out to her.

‘You’re wanted at the director’s office, miss.’

She had forgotten the order Mouret had given her in the morning to go to his office after the sale. He was standing waiting for her. As she went in she did not push the door to, and it remained open.

‘We’re very pleased with you, Mademoiselle Baudu,’ he said,
‘and we thought we’d give you proof of our satisfaction … You know about the shameful way Madame Frédéric left us. From tomorrow you will take her place as assistant buyer.’

Denise listened to him in surprise, unable to move. She murmured in a shaking voice: