‘So I’m quite sure her buyers will snap up our Paris-Paradise. Why should she go and pay more for this silk at the factory than she would in my shop? Honestly! We’re selling it at a loss.’
This dealt the ladies a final blow. The idea of getting goods below cost price aroused in them the ruthlessness of Woman, whose enjoyment as buyer is doubled when she thinks she’s robbing the shopkeeper. He knew they were incapable of resisting a real bargain.
‘But we sell everything for a song!’ he exclaimed gaily, picking up Madame Desforges’s fan, which was still lying on the pedestal table behind him. ‘Look! Here’s this fan … How much did you say it cost?’
‘Twenty-five francs for the Chantilly, and two hundred for the mount,’ said Henriette.
‘Well, the Chantilly isn’t expensive. But we have the same one for eighteen francs … And as for the mount, my dear lady, it’s pure theft. I wouldn’t dare to sell one like that for more than ninety francs.’
‘That’s just what I said,’ exclaimed Madame Bourdelais.
‘Ninety francs!’ murmured Madame de Boves. ‘One would have to be very poor not to buy one at that price!’
She had picked up the fan again, and was examining it with her daughter Blanche; on her large, regular face, in her big, sleepy eyes, her pent-up, hopeless desire for a whim she would not be able to satisfy was mounting. Then, for a second time, the fan was passed round by the ladies, to the accompaniment of remarks and exclamations. In the mean time Monsieur de Boves and Vallagnosc had left the window. The former came back and took up his former position behind Madame Guibal, his gaze delving into her corsage while he nevertheless maintained his decorous, superior air, while the young man was bending down towards Blanche, trying to think of something agreeable to say.
‘It’s rather depressing, don’t you think, Mademoiselle Blanche, this white frame with black lace?’
‘Oh!’ she replied gravely, without a blush colouring her puffy cheeks. ‘I’ve seen one in mother-of-pearl with white feathers. It was quite virginal!’
Monsieur de Boves, who had doubtless observed his wife’s longing gaze fixed on the fan, finally made his contribution to the conversation:
‘They break straight away, those flimsy little things.’
‘I know!’ Madame Guibal declared, pouting and pretending to be unconcerned. ‘I’m tired of having mine re-glued.’
Madame Marty, excited by the conversation, had for some time been feverishly twisting her red leather bag on her lap. She had not yet been able to show her purchases to the others, and was dying, with a kind of sensual urge, to display them. Suddenly she forgot all about her husband, opened her bag, and took out a few metres of narrow lace rolled round a piece of cardboard.
‘This is the Valenciennes for my daughter,’ she said. ‘It’s three centimetres wide. Isn’t it delightful? One franc ninety centimes.’
The lace passed from hand to hand. The ladies exclaimed in admiration. Mouret declared that he sold little trimmings like that at factory price. But Madame Marty had closed her bag again, as if to hide things in it which could not be shown. However, as the Valenciennes was such a success she could not resist the desire to take out a handkerchief as well.
‘There was this handkerchief too … Brussels lace, my dear … Oh! A real find! Twenty francs!’
From then on, the bag was inexhaustible. As she took out each fresh article she blushed with pleasure, with the modesty of a woman undressing, which made her embarrassment seem quite charming.
There was a scarf in Spanish lace for thirty francs; she had not wanted it, but the assistant had sworn that it was the last one he had and that they were going to go up in price. Next there was a veil in Chantilly; rather dear, fifty francs; if she did not wear it herself she would make something for her daughter with it.
‘Lace is so lovely!’ she repeated with her nervous laugh. ‘Once I’m inside I could buy the whole shop.’
‘And this?’ Madame de Boves asked her, examining a remnant of guipure.
‘That’, she replied, ‘is for an insertion … There are twenty-six metres. It was one franc a metre, you see!’
‘Oh!’ said Madame Bourdelais, surprised, ‘what are you going to do with it, then?’
‘I really don’t know … But it had such a pretty pattern!’
At that moment, as she looked up, she caught sight of her terrified husband opposite her. He had become even paler, his whole person expressing the resigned anguish of a poor man witnessing the decimation of his hard-earned salary. Each fresh piece of lace was for him a disaster, the bitter days of teaching swallowed up, the long journeys through the mud to give private lessons totally engulfed, the endless struggle of his existence resulting in secret poverty, in the hell of a needy household. Faced with his look of growing alarm, she tried to retrieve the handkerchief, the veil, the scarf, moving her feverish hands about, repeating with little embarrassed laughs:
‘You’ll get me into trouble with my husband … I assure you, my dear, I’ve been very reasonable, for there was a big fichu there at five hundred francs … Oh! it was marvellous!’
‘Why didn’t you buy it?’ said Madame Guibal calmly. ‘Monsieur Marty is the most generous of men.’
The teacher was forced to admit that his wife was quite free to do as she pleased. But the mention of the big fichu had sent an icy shiver running down his spine; and as Mouret was just at that moment affirming that the new shops were increasing the well-being of middle-class families, he gave him a terrible look, the flash of hatred of a man too timid to murder people.
In any case the ladies had kept hold of the lace. They were becoming intoxicated with it. Pieces were being unwound, passed from one woman to another, drawing them even closer together, linking them with light strands. On their laps they could feel the caress of the miraculously fine material, in which their guilty hands fondly lingered. And they still kept Mouret tightly imprisoned, overwhelming him with further questions. As the light continued to fade, he had to bend forward now and again to examine a stitch or to point out a design, lightly brushing against their hair with his beard as he did so. But in the soft voluptuousness of dusk, surrounded by the warm odour of their shoulders, he still remained their master beneath the rapture he affected. He seemed a woman himself; they felt penetrated and overcome by his delicate understanding of their secret selves, and they forgot their modesty, won over by his seductive charm; whereas he, brutally triumphant, certain that from that moment onwards he had them at his mercy, appeared like some despotic king of fashion.
‘Oh! Monsieur Mouret! Monsieur Mouret!’ they stammered in low, rapturous voices in the darkness of the drawing-room.
The dying lights of the sky were fading on the brasswork of the furniture. The laces alone retained a snowy glint on the dark laps of the ladies who surrounded the young man in a blurred group like vague kneeling worshippers. A last gleam of light was shining on the side of the teapot, the short, bright glimmer of a night-light burning in a bedchamber warmed by the perfume of tea. But suddenly the servant came in with two lamps, and the charm was broken. The drawing-room became light and cheerful. Madame Marty was putting the lace back in the depths of her little bag; Madame de Boves was eating another rum baba, while Henriette, who had got up, was talking in a half-whisper with the Baron, in one of the window recesses.
‘He’s charming,’ said the Baron.
‘Yes, isn’t he?’ she exclaimed, with the involuntary cry of a woman in love.
He smiled and looked at her with fatherly indulgence. It was the first time he had felt her conquered to such an extent; and, being above suffering over it himself, he felt only compassion at seeing her in the hands of this handsome young fellow, so loving and yet so cold-blooded. And so, thinking that he should warn her, he murmured jokingly:
‘Take care, my dear, or he’ll eat you all up.’
A flash of jealousy lit up Henriette’s beautiful eyes. Doubtless she guessed that Mouret had simply made use of her in o
rder to make contact with the Baron. She swore to herself she would make him mad with passion for her, for his love, the love of a busy man, had the facile charm of a song scattered to the winds.
‘Oh!’ she replied, pretending to joke in her turn, ‘it’s always the lamb that ends up eating the wolf!’
The Baron, greatly intrigued, gave her an encouraging nod. Perhaps she was the woman who would avenge the others?
When Mouret, after reminding Vallagnosc that he wanted to show him his machine at work, came up to say goodbye, the Baron took him aside into a window recess overlooking the darkened garden. At last he was succumbing to Mouret’s charm; his confidence had come when he had seen him among the ladies. They talked for a moment in low voices. Then the banker declared:
‘Well! I’ll look into the matter … If your sale on Monday is as successful as you say it will be, then the deal is on.’
They shook hands, and Mouret, looking delighted, took his leave, for he did not enjoy his dinner unless he had first been to have a look at the day’s takings at the Ladies’ Paradise.
CHAPTER 4
ON that particular Monday, 10 October, a bright, victorious sun pierced through the thick grey clouds which, for a week, had cast a gloom over Paris. Throughout the night there had still been some drizzle, a fine mist that made the streets dirty with its moisture; but at daybreak the pavements had been wiped clean by the brisk gusts which were carrying the clouds away, and the blue sky had the limpid gaiety of springtime.
And so, from eight o’clock the Ladies’ Paradise blazed forth in the rays of bright sunshine, in all the glory of its great sale of winter fashions. Flags were waving at the door, woollen goods were flapping in the fresh morning air, enlivening the Place Gaillon with the hubbub of a fairground; and the windows along the two streets developed symphonies with their displays, the brilliant tones of which were further heightened by the clearness of the glass. It was an orgy of colour, the joy of the street bursting out there, a wealth of goods openly displayed, where everyone could go and feast his eyes.
But at that time of day not many people were going in, only a few customers in a hurry, local housewives, women who wished to avoid the afternoon crush. Behind the materials which decked it, the shop seemed to be empty, armed and awaiting action, its floors polished and its counters overflowing with goods. The busy morning crowd scarcely glanced at the shop-windows, and never slackened pace. In the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin and the Place Gaillon, where carriages were to take their stand, at nine o’clock there were only two cabs. Only the local inhabitants, especially the small tradesmen, roused by such a display of streamers and plumes, were forming little groups in doorways and at street-corners, gazing up at the shop, and making plenty of sour comments. Their indignation was aroused by the fact that in the Rue de la Michodière, outside the dispatch office, there stood one of the four delivery vans which Mouret had just launched on Paris: they were painted green, picked out with yellow and red, their brilliantly varnished panels flashing gold and purple in the sunlight. The van which was standing there, with its new colour-scheme, the name of the shop emblazoned on each side, and carrying on top a placard advertising the day’s sale, finally went off at a trot, pulled by a superb horse, after it had been filled with parcels left over from the day before. Baudu, standing livid on the threshold of the Vieil Elbeuf, watched it as far as the boulevard, where it disappeared, to spread all over the city in a starry radiance the hated name of the Ladies’ Paradise.
In the mean time, a few cabs were arriving and lining up. Every time a customer appeared, there was a stir among the page-boys lined up beneath the high porch, dressed in a livery of light green coat and trousers, and yellow and red striped waistcoat. Jouve, the retired captain who worked as a shopwalker, was there too, in frock-coat and white tie, wearing his medal like a sign of respectability and probity, receiving the ladies with an air of solemn politeness, bending over them to point out the various departments. Then they would disappear into the entrance-hall, which had been changed into an oriental hall.
No sooner had they entered than they were greeted with a surprise, a marvel which enchanted them all. It had been Mouret’s idea. He had recently been the first to buy in the Levant, on extremely favourable terms, a collection of antique and modern carpets, rare carpets of the sort that until then had only been sold by antique dealers at very high prices; and he was going to flood the market with them; he was letting them go almost at cost price, simply using them as a splendid setting which would attract art connoisseurs to his shop. From the middle of the Place Gaillon passers-by could catch a glimpse of this oriental hall, composed entirely of carpets and door-curtains, which the porters had hung up under his directions. First of all, the ceiling was covered with carpets from Smyrna, their complicated designs standing out on red backgrounds. Then, on all four sides, were hung door-curtains: door-curtains from Kerman and Syria, striped with green, yellow, and vermilion; door-curtains from Diarbekir, of a commoner type, rough to the touch, like shepherds’ cloaks; and still more carpets which could be used as hangings, long carpets from Ispahan, Teeran, and Kermanshah, broader carpets from Schoumaka and Madras, a strange blossoming of peonies and palms, imagination running riot in a dream garden. On the floor there were still more carpets; thick fleeces were strewn there, and in the centre was a carpet from Agra, an extraordinary specimen with a white background and a broad border of soft blue, through which ran purplish embellishments of exquisite design. There were other marvels displayed everywhere, carpets from Mecca with a velvet reflection, prayer rugs from Daghestan with a symbolic pointed design, carpets from Kurdistan covered with flowers in full bloom; finally, in a corner, there was a large pile of cheap rugs, from Geurdis, Kula, and Kirghehir, priced from fifteen francs upwards. This sumptuous pasha’s tent was furnished with armchairs and divans made from camel-bags, some ornamented with multi-coloured lozenges, others with simple roses. Turkey, Arabia, Persia, the Indies were all there. Palaces had been emptied, mosques and bazaars plundered. Tawny gold was the dominant tone in the worn antique carpets, and their faded tints retained a sombre warmth, the smelting of some extinguished furnace, with the beautiful burnt hue of an old master. Visions of the Orient floated beneath the luxury of this barbarous art, amid the strong odour which the old wools had retained from lands of vermin and sun.
At eight o’clock in the morning, when Denise, who was starting work that very Monday, had crossed the oriental hall, she had stood still in astonishment, unable to recognize the entrance of the shop, her confusion compounded by the harem scene set up at the door. A porter had taken her up to the attics and handed her over to Madame Cabin, who was in charge of the cleaning and the bedrooms, and who had installed her in No. 7, where her trunk had already been brought. It was a narrow cell, with a skylight window opening on to the roof, and furnished with a small bed, a walnut cupboard, a dressing-table, and two chairs. Twenty similar rooms led off the convent-like corridor, which was painted yellow; and, out of the thirty-five girls in the shop, the twenty who had no home in Paris slept there, while the other fifteen lived out, some of them with fictitious aunts or cousins. Denise immediately took off her skimpy woollen dress, worn thin with brushing and mended on the sleeves, the only one she had brought from Valognes. Then she put on the uniform of her department, a black silk dress which had been altered for her and which she found ready on the bed. The dress was still a little too big, too broad across the shoulders. But she was in such a hurry in her excitement that she paid no attention to the details of her appearance. She had never worn silk before. When she went downstairs again, all dressed up and ill at ease, she looked at the shiny skirt, and the loud rustling of the material embarrassed her.
Downstairs, as she was entering the department, a quarrel broke out. She heard Clara say in a shrill voice:
‘I arrived before her, ma’am.’
‘It’s not true,’ Marguerite replied. ‘She pushed past me at the door, but I already had one foot inside the salon.
’
It was a question of putting their names down on the roster which controlled their turns at selling. The salesgirls wrote their names on a slate in the order of their arrival; and each time they served a customer, they would write their names again at the bottom of the list. In the end Madame Aurélie took Marguerite’s side.
‘She’s always unfair!’ Clara muttered furiously.
But Denise’s entrance reconciled the girls. They looked at her, then smiled to each other. How could anyone dress like that! The girl went awkwardly to put her name down on the roster, on which she was the last. Meanwhile Madame Aurélie examined her with an anxious pursing of her lips. She could not help saying:
‘My dear, two of your size could fit into that dress. It’ll have to be taken in … In any case, you don’t know how to dress yourself. Come here and let me arrange you a bit.’
She led her to one of the tall mirrors which alternated with the solid doors of the cupboards in which the dresses were crammed. The vast room, surrounded by the mirrors and by the carved oak woodwork, and decorated with red moquette bearing a large floral pattern, resembled the commonplace lounge of a hotel with a continual stream of people rushing through it. The young ladies completed the resemblance, dressed as they were in the regulation silk, displaying their salesgirl charms without ever sitting down on the dozen chairs reserved for the customers. Each girl had a long pencil, which seemed plunged into her bosom between the two buttonholes of her bodice, with its point sticking up; and the splash of white of a cash-book could be glimpsed half emerging from a pocket. Several of the girls risked wearing jewellery—rings, brooches, chains—but their greatest coquetry, the luxury with which, in the enforced uniformity of their dress, they struggled to outdo each other, was their bare heads, the profusion of their hair which, if it was insufficient, was augmented by plaits and chignons, combed, curled, and flaunted.