The Ladies' Paradise (BBC tie-in) (Oxford World's Classics) (7 page)

‘That’s enough chat, we must make room for the others!’ the draper concluded, giving the signal to leave the table. ‘Just because we’ve given ourselves a treat is no reason for wanting too much of it.’

Madame Baudu, the other male assistant, and the girl came and took their places at the table. Denise, left alone again, sat near the door, waiting for her uncle to take her to see Vinçard. Pépé was playing at her feet, while Jean had taken up his observation post on the doorstep again. She sat there for nearly an hour, watching what was going on around her. Now and again a few customers came in: one lady appeared, then two others. The shop retained its musty smell, its half-light, in which the old-fashioned way of business, good-natured and simple, seemed to be weeping at its neglect. But what fascinated Denise was the Ladies’ Paradise on the other side of the street, for she could see the shop-windows through the open door. The sky was still
overcast, but the mildness brought by rain was warming the air in spite of the season; and in the clear light, dusted with sunshine, the great shop was coming to life, and business was in full swing.

Denise felt that she was watching a machine working at high pressure; its dynamism seemed to reach to the display windows themselves. They were no longer the cold windows she had seen in the morning; now they seemed to be warm and vibrating with the activity within. A crowd was looking at them, groups of women were crushing each other in front of them, a real mob, made brutal by covetousness. And these passions in the street were giving life to the materials: the laces shivered, then drooped again, concealing the depths of the shop with an exciting air of mystery; even the lengths of cloth, thick and square, were breathing, exuding a tempting odour, while the overcoats were throwing back their shoulders still more on the dummies, which were acquiring souls, and the huge velvet coat was billowing out, supple and warm, as if on shoulders of flesh and blood, with a heaving breast and quivering hips. But the furnace-like heat with which the shop was ablaze came above all from the selling, from the bustle at the counters, which could be felt behind the walls. There was the continuous roar of the machine at work, of customers crowding into the departments, dazzled by the merchandise, then propelled towards the cash-desk. And it was all regulated and organized with the remorselessness of a machine: the vast horde of women were as if caught in the wheels of an inevitable force.

Since the morning Denise had felt herself being tempted. She was bewildered and attracted by this shop, which looked so vast to her, and in which she saw more people in an hour than she had seen at Cornaille’s in six months; and in her desire to enter it there was a vague fear, which completed her seduction. At the same time her uncle’s shop made her ill at ease. She felt an irrational disdain, an instinctive repugnance for this icy little place where the old-fashioned methods of business still prevailed. All her sensations, her anxious entry, her relations’ sour welcome, the depressing lunch in the dungeon-like darkness, her long wait in the sleepy solitude of the old house doomed to decay—all this was combining to form a veiled protest, a passionate desire for life and light. And, in spite of her kind
heart, her eyes kept turning back to the Ladies’ Paradise, as if the salesgirl in her felt the need to go and warm herself before the blaze of this huge sale.

She let slip a remark:

‘They’ve got plenty of customers over there, at any rate!’

But she regretted her words when she noticed the Baudus nearby. Madame Baudu, who had finished her lunch, was standing up, white as a sheet, her white eyes fixed on the monster; and, resigned though she was, she could not see it, could not catch sight of it on the other side of the street, without dumb despair filling her eyes with tears. As for Geneviève, she was anxiously watching Colomban, who, not thinking that he was being observed, stood in rapture, looking at the girls selling coats, whose department was visible through the mezzanine windows. Baudu, his face contorted with rage, contented himself by saying:

‘All that glisters is not gold. You just wait!’

The thought of his family was evidently holding back the flood of resentment which was rising in his throat. A sense of pride prevented him from giving vent to his feelings so soon in front of the children, who had only arrived that morning. In the end, the draper made an effort, and turned round in order to tear himself away from the sight of the selling going on opposite.

‘Well,’ he went on, ‘let’s go and see Vinçard. Jobs are soon snatched up; tomorrow it may be too late.’

But before going out he told the second assistant to go to the station to fetch Denise’s trunk. For her part Madame Baudu, to whom the girl had entrusted Pépé, decided that she would take advantage of a free moment by going over to see Madame Gras in the Rue des Orties to arrange about the child. Jean promised his sister that he would not leave the shop.

‘It’ll only take a couple of minutes,’ Baudu explained as he walked down the Rue Gaillon with his niece. ‘Vinçard specializes in silks, and he’s still doing a fair trade. Oh, he has his difficulties, like everyone else, but he’s artful and makes ends meet by being as stingy as he can. But I think he wants to retire, because of his rheumatism.’

The shop was in the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, near the Passage Choiseul. It was clean and light, well fitted out in the modern style, but small and poorly stocked. Baudu and Denise found Vinçard deep in conference with two gentlemen.

‘Never mind us,’ the draper called out. ‘We’re not in a hurry, we’ll wait.’

And, going tactfully back towards the door, he whispered in the girl’s ear:

‘The thin one’s at the Paradise, assistant buyer in the silk department, and the fat one’s a manufacturer from Lyons.’

Denise gathered that Vinçard was talking up his shop to Robineau, the assistant from the Ladies’ Paradise. He was giving his word of honour in a frank, open way, with the facility of a man who could take any number of oaths without any trouble. According to him, the shop was a gold-mine; and, resplendent as he was with good health, he broke off to whine and complain about the infernal pains which were forcing him to give up making his fortune. But Robineau, highly strung and anxious, interrupted him impatiently: he knew about the crisis the trade was going through, and named a shop specializing in silks which had already been ruined by the proximity of the Paradise. Vinçard, extremely angry, raised his voice.

‘No wonder! That old chump Vabre
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was bound to come a cropper. His wife spent everything he earned … Besides, we’re more than five hundred yards away, whereas Vabre was right next door to it.’

Gaujean, the silk manufacturer, chimed in. Once more their voices were lowered. Gaujean was accusing the big stores of ruining the French textile industry; three or four of them were dictating to it, completely ruling the market; and he insinuated that the only way to resist them was to encourage small businesses, especially those which specialized, for the future belonged to them. For this reason he was offering Robineau plenty of credit.

‘Look how the Paradise has treated you!’ he repeated. ‘They take no account of services rendered, they’re just machines for exploiting people … They promised you the job of buyer ages ago, and then Bouthemont, who was an outsider and had no right to it, got it straight away.’

Robineau was still smarting from this injustice. All the same, he was hesitating about setting up in business himself, explaining that the money was not his; his wife had inherited sixty thousand francs, and he was full of scruples about this sum,
saying that he would rather cut both his hands off on the spot than risk the money in bad business.

‘No. I haven’t made up my mind,’ he concluded at last. ‘Give me time to think it over; we’ll discuss it again.’

‘As you like,’ said Vinçard, hiding his disappointment with a smile. ‘It’s not in my interest to sell. You know, if it wasn’t for my rheumatism …’

And returning to the middle of the shop he asked:

‘What can I do for you, Monsieur Baudu?’

The draper, who had been listening with one ear, introduced Denise, told Vinçard as much as he thought necessary of her story, and said that she had been working in the provinces for two years.

‘And as I hear that you’re looking for a good salesgirl…’

Vinçard pretended to be terribly sorry.

‘Oh! What bad luck! I have indeed been looking for a salesgirl all week. But I’ve just engaged one, less than two hours ago.’

A silence ensued. Denise seemed totally dismayed. Then Robineau, who was looking at her with interest, no doubt touched by her poor appearance, volunteered some information.

‘I know they want someone at our place, in the ladieswear department.’

Baudu could not suppress a heartfelt exclamation:

‘At your place! My goodness—no!’

Then he stopped, embarrassed. Denise had turned very red; she would never dare to enter that huge shop! And yet the idea of being there filled her with pride.

‘Why not?’ asked Robineau, surprised. ‘It would be a good opening for her … I’d advise her to go and see Madame Aurélie, the buyer, tomorrow morning. The worst that can happen is that they won’t take her.’

The draper, in order to hide his inner revulsion, began to chatter vaguely: he knew Madame Aurélie, or at any rate her husband Lhomme, the cashier, a fat man who had had his right arm cut off by an omnibus. Then, suddenly coming back to Denise, he said:

‘In any case, it’s her affair, not mine … She’s quite free …’

And he went out, after saying goodbye to Gaujean and Robineau. Vinçard accompanied him to the door, saying once
more how sorry he was. The girl had remained in the middle of the shop, intimidated, anxious to get more information from Robineau. But she did not dare, and said goodbye in her turn, adding simply:

‘Thank you, sir.’

On the way back Baudu did not speak to his niece. He walked fast, forcing her to run, as if carried away by his thoughts. In the Rue de la Michodière he was about to go into his shop when a neighbouring shopkeeper, standing at his door, beckoned him over. Denise stopped to wait for him.

‘What is it, Bourras, old chap?’ asked the draper.

Bourras was a tall old man with the head of a prophet, long-haired and bearded, and with piercing eyes under great bushy eyebrows. He sold walking-sticks and umbrellas, did repairs, and even carved handles, a skill which had earned him quite a reputation as an artist. Denise glanced at the shop-windows, where the umbrellas and walking-sticks were arranged in straight lines. But when she looked up she was astonished at the appearance of the house: it was a hovel squashed between the Ladies’ Paradise and a large Louis XIV mansion; its two low storeys were collapsing at the bottom of the narrow crevice where it had somehow sprung up. Without supports on each side it would have fallen down; the roof slates were crooked and rotten, and the two-windowed façade was scarred with cracks which ran down in long rusty lines over the worm-eaten signboard.

‘You know, he’s written to my landlord about buying the house,’ said Bourras, looking at the draper intently with his blazing eyes.

Baudu became even paler, and bent his shoulders. There was a silence, during which the two men looked at each other very seriously.

‘You must be prepared for everything,’ Baudu murmured finally.

At that the old man flew into a rage, shaking his hair and his flowing beard.

‘Let him buy the house, he’ll pay four times its value for it! But I swear that as long as I’m alive he won’t have a single stone of it. My lease has twelve years to run … We’ll see, we’ll see!’

It was a declaration of war. Bourras turned towards the Ladies’ Paradise, which neither of them had named. Baudu
shook his head in silence, then crossed the street to his shop, his legs giving way, repeating only:

‘Oh! God! … Oh! God!’

Denise, who had been listening, followed her uncle. Madame Baudu had just come back with Pépé, and she said at once that Madame Gras would take the child whenever they wanted. But Jean had just disappeared, which made his sister anxious. When he returned, his face flushed, talking excitedly about the boulevard, she looked at him in such a sad way that it made him blush. Their trunk had arrived and it was agreed that they would sleep in the attic.

‘By the way, how did you get on at Vinçard’s?’ asked Madame Baudu.

The draper told her about his fruitless errand, adding that they had been told about a job for Denise; and, pointing towards the Ladies’ Paradise in a gesture of contempt, he cried out:

‘There—in there!’

The whole family felt hurt at the idea. In the evening, the first meal was at five o’clock. Denise and the two children took their places again with Baudu, Geneviève, and Colomban. The small dining-room was lit by a gas jet, and the smell of food was stifling. They ate in silence, but during the dessert Madame Baudu, who was restless, left the shop to come and sit down behind her niece. And then the storm which had been brewing all morning broke, and they all relieved their feelings by abusing the monster.

‘It’s your business, you’re free to do what you want…,’ repeated Baudu. ‘We don’t want to influence you … But the sort of place it is …!’

In broken sentences he told her the story of Octave Mouret. Wonderful luck! A lad from the Midi
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who had turned up in Paris possessing all the attractive audacity of an adventurer; and, from the day he arrived, there had been nothing but affairs with women, an endless exploiting of women, a scandal which was still the talk of the neighbourhood, when he had been caught in the act; then his sudden and inexplicable conquest of Madame Hédouin, which had brought him the Ladies’ Paradise.

‘Poor Caroline!’ interrupted Madame Baudu. ‘We were distantly related. Ah! If she had lived things would have been different. She wouldn’t have let them ruin us like this … And
he’s the one who killed her. Yes, on his building site! One morning, when she was looking at the works, she fell into a hole. Three days later she died. A fine, healthy woman, who had never had a day’s illness in her life! There’s some of her blood under the foundations of that shop!’