The Ladies' Paradise

  Mademoiselle de Fontenailles stood up, and went back to the department, where she was greeted by a lot of whispering. Joseph, under the mocking eyes of the girls, was writing all crooked. Clara, delighted to have an assistant, was very rough with her all the same because of the hatred she felt for all women in the shop. How idiotic it was, when one was a marchioness, to yield to the love of an ordinary working man! And she envied her that love.

  ‘Very good, very good!’ Mouret was repeating, still pretending to read.

  Madame Aurélie, meanwhile, did not know how to withdraw decently in her turn. She walked up and down, and went to look at the mechanical cutters, furious that her husband had not invented a pretext for calling her; but he was never any good for serious things, he would have died of thirst beside a pond. It was Marguerite, finally, who had the wit to come and ask her about something.

  ‘I’ll come and see,’ replied the buyer.

  And, her dignity safeguarded now that she had an excuse in the eyes of the girls who were watching her, she left Mouret and Denise alone, walking out of the room with a majestic air, her profile so lofty that the salesgirls did not even dare to smile.

  Mouret had slowly replaced the lists on the table. He stood looking at the girl, who remained seated, pen in hand. She did not look away; she had only become paler.

  ‘You’ll come tonight?’ he asked in a low voice.

  ‘No, sir,’ she replied. ‘I can’t. My brothers are going to be at my uncle’s, and I’ve promised to dine with them.’

  ‘But what about your foot? You still can’t walk properly!’

  ‘Oh! I can easily get as far as that; I’ve been feeling much better since this morning!’

  Faced with this calm refusal, he had become pale in his turn. His lips betrayed a nervous quiver. Nevertheless, he controlled himself, and with the air of a kindly employer simply taking an interest in one of his salesgirls, he resumed:

  ‘Come now, if I invite you … You know how highly I think of you.’

  Denise maintained her respectful attitude.

  ‘I’m very touched by your kindness to me, sir, and I thank you for the invitation. But I must repeat that it’s impossible, my brothers are expecting me this evening.’

  She was obstinately refusing to understand. The door had remained open, and she could feel the whole shop urging her on. Pauline had, in a friendly way, called her a silly ass, and the others would laugh at her if she refused the invitation. Madame Aurélie, who had left the room, Marguerite, whose raised voice she could hear, Lhomme, whose motionless and discreet back she could see—they all desired her fall, they were all throwing her at their employer. And the distant hum of the stock-taking, the millions of goods being called out on all sides, being turned over in armfuls, was like a hot wind carrying the breath of passion towards her.

  There was a silence. At times the noise drowned Mouret’s words, accompanying them with the formidable din of a king’s fortune won in battle.

  ‘Well, when will you come?’ he asked again. ‘Tomorrow?’

  This simple question upset Denise. For a moment she lost her composure and stammered:

  ‘I don’t know … I can’t…’

  He smiled; he tried to take her hand, which she drew back.

  ‘What are you afraid of?’

  But she quickly raised her head, looked him straight in the face, and said, smiling in her gentle, honest way:

  ‘I’m not afraid of anything, sir … One only does as one wants, doesn’t one? I just don’t want to, that’s all!’

  As she stopped speaking she was surprised to hear a creak. She turned round and saw the door slowly closing. Jouve had taken it upon himself to close it. Doors formed part of his duties; none were supposed to remain open. Then he returned gravely to his sentry post. No one seemed to notice the door being closed in this simple way. Only Clara let out a crude word in the ear of Mademoiselle de Fontenailles, who remained pale and expressionless.

  Meanwhile, Denise had stood up. Mouret was saying to her in a low and trembling voice:

  ‘Listen, I love you … You’ve known it for a long time; don’t play the cruel game with me of pretending not to know … And don’t be afraid of anything. I’ve wanted to call you into my office scores of times. We’d have been alone, I’d only have had to bolt the door. But I didn’t want to; you can see how I’m talking to you, anyone can come in here … I love you, Denise.’

  She stood there, her face white, still looking him straight in the face.

  ‘Tell me, why do you refuse? Don’t you have any needs? Your brothers are a heavy responsibility. Anything you ask, anything you require …’

  With a word, she cut him short:

  ‘Thank you, I’m now earning more than I need.’

  ‘But it’s freedom I’m offering you, a life of pleasure and luxury … I’ll set you up with a home of your own; I’ll make sure that you’re well off.’

  ‘No, thank you, I’d be bored doing nothing … I was earning my own living before I was ten years old.’

  He made a frantic gesture. She was the first one not to yield. He had only to stoop to get the others; they all waited on his whim like obedient servants; but she was saying no, without even giving him a reasonable excuse. His desire, controlled for so long, exacerbated by her resistance, was becoming stronger than ever. Perhaps he was not offering her enough? He doubled his offers, becoming more and more insistent.

  ‘No, no, thank you,’ she replied each time, without weakening.

  Then a cry from the heart escaped him:

  ‘Can’t you see that I’m suffering? Yes, it’s stupid, I’m suffering like a child!’

  Tears came to his eyes. A fresh silence reigned. Behind the closed door the muffled hum of the stock-taking could still be heard. It was like a dying sound of triumph, a discreet accompaniment to the master’s defeat.

  ‘But if I wanted …’ he said in a passionate voice, seizing her hands.

  She let him hold them; her eyes grew dim, all her strength was ebbing away. She felt the warmth of the man’s hot hands, filling her with a delicious sense of weakness. Goodness! How she loved him, and what delight if she had flung her arms round his neck and leaned on his breast!

  ‘I want you to come, I want you to come,’ he was repeating, beside himself. ‘I’ll expect you tonight, or I’ll take steps …’

  He was becoming brutal. She uttered a faint cry, and the pain she felt at her wrists restored her courage. With a jerk, she freed herself. Then, standing erect and seeming taller because of her defencelessness, she said:

  ‘No, let me go … I’m not a Clara, to be dropped the next day. Besides, you love someone else, yes, that lady who comes here … Stay with her. I don’t share people’s affections.’

  He was struck dumb with surprise. What was she saying and what did she want, then? Never had the girls he picked up in the departments worried themselves about being loved. He should have laughed about it, but this attitude of gentle pride completed the confusion in his heart.

  ‘Please open the door, sir,’ she went on. ‘It’s not proper that we should be together like this.’

  Mouret obeyed and, his temples throbbing, not knowing how to hide his anguish, he called Madame Aurélie back again, and lost his temper about the stock of cloaks, saying that the prices would have to be lowered, and continue to be lowered until the last one was sold. It was the rule of the shop, they got rid of everything each year; they sold goods at a sixty per cent loss rather than keep an old model or shop-soiled material. As it happened Bourdoncle, looking for the director, had been waiting for him; he had been stopped outside the closed door by Jouve, who had whispered a few words in his ear with a serious air. He was growing impatient without, however, having the courage to interrupt the tête-à-tête. Was it possible? On such a day too, and with that puny creature! When the door finally opened, Bourdoncle spoke of the fancy silks, of which the left-over stock was going to be enormous. It was a relief for Mouret to be able to sh
out as much as he liked. What was Bouthemont thinking of? He went off, declaring that he would not tolerate that a buyer should be so lacking in flair that he committed the folly of stocking more goods than sales allowed.

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’ murmured Madame Aurélie, very upset by his reproaches.

  The girls looked at each other in surprise. At six o’clock the stock-taking was finished. The sun was still shining, a pale summer sun, the golden reflection of which was coming through the hall windows. In the heavy air of the streets tired families were already coming back from the suburbs, loaded with bunches of flowers and dragging their children along. One by one, the departments had fallen silent. Nothing could be heard in the galleries but the belated shouts of a few salesmen emptying a last shelf. Then these voices too became silent, and all that remained of the day’s hubbub was a mighty chill which hung over the huge piles of merchandise. The shelves, cupboards, boxes, and cases were empty: not a metre of material, not a single object had remained in its place. The huge shop now displayed nothing but its empty framework, its wooden counters and shelves completely bare, as on the day they had been installed. This bareness was the visible proof of the complete and accurate returns of the stock-taking. And on the ground was piled up sixteen million francs’ worth of goods, a rising sea which had, in the end, submerged the tables and counters. The salesmen, plunged in it up to their shoulders, were beginning to put each article back. It was hoped that they would finish by ten o’clock.

  When Madame Aurélie, who went to the first dinner service, came back from the dining-room, she announced the turnover figure for the year, a figure which had just been worked out by adding up those of the various departments. The total was eighty million, ten million more than the preceding year. The only actual loss was on the fancy silks.

  ‘If Monsieur Mouret isn’t satisfied, I don’t know what he wants,’ added the buyer. ‘Look! He’s over there, at the top of the main staircase, looking furious.’

  The girls went to look. He was standing alone, scowling down at the millions scattered at his feet.

  ‘Would you be good enough to let me go to my room, ma’am?’ Denise came to ask at that moment. ‘I’m no longer any use because of my leg, and as I’ve got to dine at my uncle’s with my brothers …’

  They were astonished. She had not succumbed, then? Madame Aurélie hesitated, and seemed on the verge of forbidding her to go out, her voice curt and displeased; while Clara, quite incredulous, shrugged her shoulders: it was probably quite simple, he didn’t want her any more! When Pauline learned of this ending to the story, she was standing with Deloche in the babywear department. The young man’s sudden joy made her furious: a lot of good it did him, didn’t it? He was pleased, was he, that his friend was silly enough to turn her back on making a fortune? Bourdoncle, who did not dare to go and disturb Mouret in his terrible isolation, was walking about amid the noise, feeling downcast himself, and full of misgivings.

  Meanwhile, Denise went downstairs. As she arrived at the bottom of the small left-hand staircase, leaning on the banisters, she came upon a group of sniggering salesmen. Her name was pronounced, and she felt that they were still talking about her encounter with Mouret. They had not seen her.

  ‘Not at all—it’s all put on!’ Favier was saying. ‘She’s utterly vicious … Yes, I know someone she wanted to take by force.’

  And he kept looking at Hutin who, in order to preserve his dignity as assistant buyer, was standing a few paces away, without taking part in the jokes. But he was so flattered by the envious way in which the others were looking at him that he deigned to murmur:

  ‘She really was a nuisance, that girl!’

  Denise, cut to the quick, clung to the banisters. They must have seen her, for they all scattered amid laughter. He was right; she blamed herself for her ignorance in the past, when she used to dream about him. But how cowardly he was, and how she despised him now! She was deeply disturbed: it was strange that a moment ago she had found the strength to repulse a man whom she adored, whereas in the past she had felt such weakness in the presence of that wretched boy, whose love she had only dreamed about! Her reason and her courage were foundering in these contradictions of her nature, which she could not fully understand.

  She hurried through the hall. Then, as a commissionaire was opening the door which had been closed since the morning, instinct made her raise her head, and she caught sight of Mouret. He was still at the top of the staircase, on the big central landing overlooking the gallery. But he had forgotten the stock-taking; he did not see his empire, the shop bursting with riches. Everything had disappeared—the resounding victories of yesterday, the colossal fortune of tomorrow. With a look of despair he was watching Denise, and when she had gone through the door there was nothing left, and the shop was plunged into darkness.

  CHAPTER 11

  THAT day Bouthemont was the first to arrive at Madame Desforges’s house at four o’clock for tea. She was still alone, in her large Louis XVI drawing-room, the brass and brocades of which shone with a bright gaiety; when he entered she stood up with an air of impatience:

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well!’ replied the young man, ‘when I told him that I’d certainly call on you, he promised me he’d come.’

  ‘And you gave him to understand that I’m expecting the Baron today?’

  ‘Of course … That’s what seemed to make him decide to come.’

  They were referring to Mouret. The year before, he had suddenly taken such a liking to Bouthemont that he had allowed him to share his private pleasures; and he had even introduced him into Henriette’s house, glad to have an obliging person at hand to enliven somewhat a liaison of which he was beginning to tire. Thus, the buyer from the silk department had finally become the confidant both of his employer and of the pretty widow: he ran small errands for them, talked about one of them to the other, and sometimes patched up their quarrels. Henriette, in her fits of jealousy, allowed herself a degree of familiarity with him that he found surprising and embarrassing, for she would lose all the discretion she possessed, as a woman of the world using all her skill to keep up appearances.

  She exclaimed violently:

  ‘You should have brought him with you. Then I’d have been sure.’

  ‘But how?’ he said, with a good-natured laugh. ‘It’s not my fault if he escapes all the time nowadays … Oh! but he’s very fond of me all the same. Without him, I’d be in trouble in the shop.’

  Indeed, since the last stock-taking, his position at the Ladies’ Paradise was precarious. In spite of his excuses that the wet weather was to blame, he was not forgiven his considerable stocks of fancy silks; and as Hutin was making the most of the affair by undermining his reputation with his superiors with a fresh burst of crafty energy, he could feel the ground crumbling beneath his feet. Mouret had condemned him, tired, no doubt, of having a witness who was now preventing him from breaking off his liaison and bored with profitless familiarity with him. But, following his usual tactics, he was pushing Bourdoncle to the fore; it was Bourdoncle and the other directors who were demanding Bouthemont’s dismissal at every board meeting; whereas Mouret, according to his own account, was holding out against them—so he said—stoutly defending his friend at the risk of creating great difficulties for himself.

  ‘Well, I shall wait,’ Madame Desforges went on. ‘You know that girl is coming at five … I want to see them face to face. I must discover their secret.’

  She described her plan, repeating in her excitement how she had asked Madame Aurélie to send Denise to her to look at a coat which fitted badly. Once she had the girl there in her room, she would easily find some way of calling Mouret; and then she would take action.

  Bouthemont, sitting opposite her, watched her with his handsome laughing eyes, trying hard to look serious. This gay young fellow with his ink-black beard, whose hot Gascon blood tinged his face with crimson, was thinking that society women were not much good, and that they certain
ly let out a lot of secrets once they opened their hearts. His friends’ mistresses, who were shopgirls, certainly never made such detailed confessions.

  ‘Come now,’ he ventured to say at last, ‘why should it matter so much? I swear to you that there’s absolutely nothing between them.’

  ‘That’s just it!’ she exclaimed, ‘he loves her … I don’t care about the others, they’re just pick-ups, they only last a day!’

  She spoke of Clara with contempt. She had heard that Mouret, after Denise’s refusal, had fallen back on that big redhead with a face like a horse; no doubt it was a calculated move, for he kept her in the department, loading her with presents in order to draw attention to her. In any case, for almost three months now he had been leading a tremendous life of pleasure, scattering money with an extravagance which was causing a great deal of comment: he had bought a house for some chorus girl and, at the same time, was being milked by two or three other tarts, who seemed to be competing with each other in expensive, idiotic whims.

  ‘It’s that creature’s fault,’ Henriette was repeating. ‘I feel he’s ruining himself with the others because she’s spurning him … In any case, I don’t care about his money! I’d have loved him more if he’d been poor. You’ve become our friend, and you know how much I love him.’

  She stopped, choking, on the verge of bursting into tears; and, with a gesture of abandon, she held out both hands to him. It was true, she adored Mouret for his youth and his triumphs; never had a man possessed her so completely, thrilling both her body and her pride; but, at the thought of losing him, she could also hear the knell of forty sounding, and she was wondering with terror how to fill the place of this great love.

  ‘But I’ll have my revenge,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll have my revenge if he behaves badly!’

  Bouthemont was still holding her hands. She was still beautiful, but she would be a nuisance as a mistress, and she wasn’t really his type. Yet it was worth considering; it might be worth risking the problems it could involve.