The Ladies' Paradise (BBC tie-in) (Oxford World's Classics) (59 page)

When they arrived at the Boulevard de Clichy the carriage picked up a little speed; one could hear the heavy breathing of the mourners and feel the unconscious haste of the procession, in a hurry to get it over. What Bourras did not mention outright was the terrible poverty into which he had fallen, bewildered as he was by the worries of a small shopkeeper going under yet persisting in holding out under a hail of refused bills. Denise, who knew what his circumstances were, finally broke the silence, murmuring in a pleading voice:

‘Monsieur Bourras, please don’t go on being difficult any longer. Let me settle things for you.’

He cut her short with a violent gesture.

‘Be quiet, it’s my business. You’re a good little girl, I know you’re giving him a hard time, that man who thought you were for sale like my house. But what would you say if I advised you to say yes? You’d tell me to get lost… So when I say no, just don’t interfere.’

As the carriage had stopped at the cemetery gate, they both got out. The Baudus’ family grave was in the first avenue on the left. The ceremony was over in a few minutes. Jean had taken his uncle, who was staring open-mouthed at the grave, to one side. The tail of the procession was spreading out among the neighbouring tombs, and the faces of all those shopkeepers, their blood impoverished from living in the depths of their unhealthy shops, were acquiring a sickly ugliness beneath the mud-coloured sky.

As the coffin sank slowly into the ground, their blotchy cheeks grew pale, their noses nipped with anaemia were lowered, and their eyes, yellow with biliousness and blinded with figures, turned away.

‘We should all go and jump into the hole,’ said Bourras to Denise, who had remained close to him. ‘We’re burying the whole neighbourhood with this child … Oh! I know what I’m
saying, the old way of business might as well go and join those white roses they’re throwing on her coffin.’

Denise took her uncle and her brother home in one of the funeral carriages. It had been a day of unrelieved sadness for her. First, she was beginning to worry about Jean’s pallor, and when she realized that it was on account of yet another amorous affair, she tried to silence him by opening her purse; but he shook his head and refused: it was serious this time, the niece of a very rich pastry-cook, who would not even accept bunches of violets. Next, in the afternoon, when Denise went to fetch Pépé from Madame Gras, the latter declared that he was getting too big for her to keep any longer; this presented a new problem, for she would now have to find a school for him, perhaps even send him away. And finally, when she took Pépé back to see his aunt and uncle, her heart bled to see the bleak sorrow of the Vieil Elbeuf. The shop was closed; her uncle and aunt were at the back of the small dining-room, where they had forgotten to light the gas in spite of the total darkness of the winter day. They were now quite alone, face to face in the house which ruin had slowly emptied, and the death of their daughter was making the dark corners seem even more cavernous; it seemed the final blow which would make the old beams, eaten away with damp, fall to pieces. Crushed by his grief, her uncle kept walking blindly round the table, without saying anything, unable to stop himself, with the same gait he had had during the procession; while her aunt, silent too, was sunk in a chair, as white as though some wound was draining away her blood drop by drop. They didn’t even weep when Pépé covered their cold cheeks with kisses. Denise choked back her tears.

That evening it so happened that Mouret sent for the girl in order to discuss a child’s garment he wanted to put on the market, a cross between a kilt and the wide trousers of a zouave.
*
Still trembling with pity, shocked by so much suffering, she could not contain herself; she ventured first of all to speak of old Bourras, that poor, helpless old man whose throat they were about to slit. But at the name of the umbrella dealer, Mouret lost his temper. The crazy old man, as he called him, was spoiling his triumph by his ridiculous obstinacy in not parting with his
house, that filthy hovel that spoiled the Ladies’ Paradise, the only little corner of the vast block which had escaped conquest. The whole thing was becoming a nightmare; anyone but Denise who spoke in favour of Bourras would have risked being dismissed immediately, so tormented was Mouret by a morbid desire to kick down the hovel. After all, what did they want him to do? Could he leave that rubbish heap standing next to the Paradise? It would have to disappear in the end; the shop would have to pass over it. Too bad for the old fool! And he recalled his proposals, how he had offered him as much as a hundred thousand francs. Wasn’t that reasonable? He wouldn’t haggle, of course, he would give what was asked for it; but people should at least have a bit of intelligence, and let him complete his work! Did people interfere by trying to stop locomotives on railways? She listened to him, her eyes lowered, able to think only of sentimental reasons. Bourras was getting so old, they could at least have waited for him to die; if he went bankrupt it would kill him. At that Mouret declared that he was no longer even in a position to prevent things taking their course; Bourdoncle was dealing with it, for the board had decided to put an end to the matter. In spite of her tender-hearted and sorrowful compassion, she could think of nothing more to say.

After a painful silence it was Mouret himself who mentioned the Baudus. He began by saying how sorry he was for them at the loss of their daughter. They were excellent people, very worthy, and had been dogged by bad luck. Then he resumed his arguments: basically, they had brought their troubles on themselves by sticking obstinately to the old-fashioned ways in their worm-eaten hovel; it was hardly surprising that the house was falling on their heads. He had predicted it scores of times; she must remember how he had told her to warn her uncle that it would be fatal for him to go on clinging to his ridiculous old-fashioned ideas. The catastrophe had arrived, and no one in the world could prevent it now. They couldn’t really expect him to ruin himself to spare the neighbourhood. In any case, if he had been foolish enough to close the Paradise, another big shop would have sprung up on its own next door, for the idea was gaining ground all over the world; the triumph of these great concentrations had been sown by the spirit of the times, which was
sweeping away the crumbling edifice of past ages. Little by little Mouret was warming up, filled with eloquent emotion to defend himself against the hatred of his involuntary victims, against the clamour of small, moribund shops which he could hear rising around him. It was impossible to keep one’s dead, after all, they must be buried; and with a gesture he swept away and threw into the paupers’ grave the corpse of old-fashioned business, the greenish stinking remains of which were becoming the disgrace of the sunny streets of modern Paris. No, no, he felt no remorse; he was merely carrying out the task of his epoch, and she knew it, she who loved life and had a passion for big business deals settled in the glare of publicity. Reduced to silence, she listened to him for a long time and then withdrew, her heart full of confusion.

That night Denise hardly slept. Insomnia interspersed with nightmares made her toss and turn under the blankets. She thought she was quite small, and burst into tears in their garden at Valognes at the sight of warblers eating spiders who, in their turn, were eating flies. Was it really true then that death must fertilize the world, that the struggle for life propelled people towards the charnel-house of eternal destruction? Next, she saw herself again beside the grave into which Geneviève was being lowered, and she saw her uncle and aunt, alone in their dark dining-room. In the deep silence, the dull sound of something crumbling was echoing through the death-like air; it was Bourras’s house collapsing, as if undermined by floods. The silence began again, more sinister than ever, and another crash was heard, then another, and another: the Robineaus, Bédoré and his sister, the Vanpouilles, were cracking up and collapsing one after another; the small businesses of the Saint-Roch district were disappearing under an invisible pickaxe, with sudden, thundering noises, like carts being unloaded. Then, a feeling of immense sorrow woke her with a start. My God! What tortures! Weeping families, old men thrown out into the street, all the poignant dramas associated with ruin! And she could not save anyone; she was even aware that it was a good thing: this manure of distress was necessary to the health of the Paris of the future. When morning came she grew calmer; a feeling of immense, resigned sadness kept her awake, her eyes turned towards the
window as it grew lighter. Yes, it was the necessary sacrifice; every revolution demanded its victims, for it was only possible to advance over the bodies of the dead. Her fear of being an evil genius, and having helped in the murder of her relatives, was now dissolving into heartfelt pity at those irremediable misfortunes, the painful birth pangs of each new generation. She ended up by trying to think of possible alleviations; she thought for a long time of measures that might be taken to save at least her own family from the final collapse.

Mouret then rose up before her, with his passionate expression and his caressing eyes. He would surely not refuse her anything; she was certain he would grant her all reasonable compensation. And her thoughts strayed as she tried to understand him. She was familiar with his life, how calculating he had been in his affections, his continual exploitation of Woman, the mistresses he had taken in order to further his own ends, his liaison with Madame Desforges with the sole aim of keeping a hold on Baron Hartmann, and all the other women, the Claras he picked up, the pleasure which he bought, paid for, and threw back into the street. But these beginnings of a career of amorous adventure, which the shop joked about, came to be seen as part of the man’s genius, his all-conquering charm. He was seduction personified. What she would never have forgiven him was the falsehood of his former behaviour, his coldness as a lover beneath the gallantry of his attentions. But now that he was suffering because of her, she felt no resentment towards him. His suffering had improved him. When she saw him tormented, paying so dearly for his contempt for women, she felt he was redeemed of his faults.

That very morning Denise obtained from Mouret the promise of such compensation, on the day when the Baudus and old Bourras succumbed, as she might judge legitimate. Weeks passed, and almost every afternoon she would slip out for a few minutes to go and see her uncle, taking with her laughter and her cheerful courage to brighten up the dark shop. She was especially worried about her aunt who, since Geneviève’s death, had been in a dull stupor; it seemed as if her life was ebbing away all the time; and when questioned, she would reply with an air of
surprise that she felt no pain, she just felt overcome with sleep. The neighbours shook their heads, saying that the poor woman would not pine for her daughter for long.

One day, Denise was coming out of the Baudus’ house when, at the corner of the Place Gaillon, she heard a loud cry. People were rushing forward; there was panic in the air, the breath of fear and pity which can suddenly take hold of a crowd. A brown omnibus on the Bastille-Batignolles line had just run over a man at the corner of the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, opposite the fountain. Standing on his seat and gesticulating furiously, the driver was reining in his two black horses, which were rearing; and he was swearing, shouting out furiously:

‘Damn you! Can’t you look where you’re going, you idiot!’

By now the omnibus had stopped. A crowd had gathered round the injured man; a policeman happened by chance to be there. The driver was still standing up, calling the passengers upstairs as witnesses—for they had also stood up in order to lean out and see the blood—and was giving his version of the incident with exasperated gestures, choking with anger.

‘He must have been mad! He just walked out into the road without looking. I shouted at him, and he just threw himself under the wheels!’

At that a workman, a house-painter who had rushed up with his brush in his hand, said in a piercing voice in the midst of the uproar:

‘There’s no need to get so worked up! I saw him, he obviously chucked himself under there deliberately! He dived forward head first. Someone else who was fed up with life, I suppose!’

Other people spoke up, agreeing that it was suicide, while the policeman was taking down particulars. Several ladies, quite pale, quickly got out of the omnibus without turning round, taking away with them the horror of the soft jolt which had made their stomachs turn when the vehicle had passed over the body. Meanwhile Denise approached, drawn by her compassionate impulses, which made her interfere in accidents of all kinds—dogs run over, fallen horses, tilers toppling off roofs. And she recognized the unfortunate man lying on the road, unconscious, his frock-coat covered with mud.

‘It’s Monsieur Robineau!’ she exclaimed in painful astonishment. The policeman immediately questioned the girl. She gave Robineau’s name, profession, and address. Thanks to the driver’s efforts, the omnibus had swerved, and only Robineau’s legs had been caught under the wheels. But it was to be feared that they were both broken. Four volunteers carried the injured man to a chemist’s shop in the Rue Gaillon, while the omnibus slowly resumed its journey.

‘God!’ said the driver, cracking his whip round his horses. ‘I’ve had enough for one day!’

Denise had followed Robineau to the chemist’s shop. The chemist, while waiting for a doctor who could not be found, declared that there was no immediate danger, and that the best thing would be to carry the injured man to his own home, since he lived nearby. A man went off to the police station to ask for a stretcher. Then the girl had the bright idea of going on ahead so as to prepare Madame Robineau for the awful shock. But she had enormous difficulty in getting into the street through the crowd, which was milling round the door. This crowd, attracted by death, was increasing from minute to minute; children and women were craning their necks, standing their ground against violent pushing; and each newcomer had his own version of the accident; they were now saying that a husband had been thrown out of a window by his wife’s lover.