The Ladies' Paradise

“Five francs!” he would exclaim each time. “My stars! you’re too good! It just happens, there’s the stationer’s wife – ”

“Not another word,” Denise would say; “I don’t want to know.”

But he thought she was accusing him of boasting. “I tell you she’s the wife of a stationer! Oh! something magnificent!”

Three months passed away, spring was returning. Denise refused to return to Joinville with Pauline and Bauge. She sometimes met them in the Rue Saint-Roch, when she left the shop in the evening. Pauline, one evening when she was alone, confided to her that she was very likely going to marry her lover; it was she who was hesitating, for they did not care for married saleswomen at The Ladies’ Paradise. This idea of marriage surprised Denise, she did not dare to advise her friend. One day, just as Colomban had stopped her near the fountain to talk about Clara, the latter was crossing the road; and Denise was obliged to run away, for he implored her to ask her old comrade if she would marry him. What was the matter with them all? why were they tormenting themselves like this? She thought herself very fortunate not to be in love with any one.

“You’ve heard the news?” cried out the umbrella dealer to her one evening on her return home from business.

“No, Monsieur Bourras.”

“Well! the scoundrels have bought the Hôtel Duvillard. I’m hemmed in on all sides!” He was waving his long arms about, in a burst of fury which made his white mane stand up on end. “A regular mixed-up affair,” resumed the old man. “It appears that the hôtel belonged to the Credit Immobilier, the president of which, Baron Hartmann, has just sold it to our famous Mouret. Now they’ve got me on the right, on the left, and at the back, just in the way I’m holding the knob of this stick in my hand!”

It was true, the sale was to have been concluded the previous day. Bourras’s small house, hemmed in between The Ladies’ Paradise and the Hôtel Duvillard, hanging on like a swallow’s nest in a crack of a wall, seemed sure to be crushed, as soon as the shop invaded the hôtel, and the time had now arrived. The colossus had turned the feeble obstacle, and was surrounding it with a pile of goods, threatening to swallow it up, to absorb it by the sole force of its giant aspiration.

Bourras could feel the embrace which was making his shop creak. He thought he could see the place getting smaller; he was afraid of being absorbed himself, of being carried to the other side with his umbrellas and sticks, so loudly was the terrible machine roaring just then.

“Do you hear them?” asked he. “One would think they were eating up the walls even! And in my cellar, in the attic, everywhere, there’s the same noise as of a saw going through the plaster. Never mind! I don’t fancy they’ll flatten me out like a sheet of paper. I’ll stick here, even if they blow up my roof, and the rain should fall in bucketfuls on my bed!”

It was just at this moment that Mouret caused fresh proposals to be made to Bourras; they would increase the figure, they would give him fifty thousand francs for his good-will and the remainder of the lease. This offer redoubled the old man’s anger; he refused in an insulting manner. How these scoundrels must rob people to be able to pay fifty thousand francs for a thing not worth ten thousand. And he defended his shop as a young girl defends her virtue, for honour’s sake.

Denise noticed Bourras was pre-occupied during the next fortnight. He wandered about in a feverish manner, measuring the walls of his house, surveying it from the middle of the street with the air of an architect. Then one morning some workmen arrived. This was the decisive blow. He had conceived the bold idea of beating The Ladies’ Paradise on its own ground by making certain concessions to modern luxury. The customers, who often reproached him about his dark shop, would certainly come back again, when they saw it bright and new. In the first place, the workmen stopped up the crevices and whitewashed the frontage, then they painted the woodwork a light green, and even carried the splendour so far as to gild the sign-board. A sum of three thousand francs, held in reserve by Bourras as a last resource, was swallowed up in this way. The whole neighbourhood was in a state of revolution; people came to look at him amid all these riches, losing his head, no longer able to find the things he was accustomed to. He did not seem to be at home in this shining frame, in this tender setting; he seemed frightened, with his long beard and white hair. The people passing on the opposite side of the street were astonished on seeing him waving his arms about and carving his handles. And he was in a state of fever, afraid of dirtying his shop, plunging further into this luxurious business, which he did not at all understand.

The same as with Robineau, the campaign against The Ladies’ Paradise was opened by Bourras. The latter had just brought out his invention, the automatic umbrella, which later on was to become popular. But The Paradise people immediately improved on the invention, and a struggle of prices commenced. Bourras had an article at one franc and nineteen sous, in zanella, with steel mounting, everlasting, said the ticket, But he was especially anxious to vanquish his competitors with his handles – bamboo, dogwood, olive, myrtle, rattan, every imaginable sort of handle. The Paradise people, less artistic, paid more attention to the material, extolling their alpacas and mohairs, their twills and sarcenets.. And they came out victorious. Bourras, in despair, repeated that art was done for, that he was reduced to carving his handles for pleasure, without any hope of selling them.

“It’s my fault!” cried he to Denise. “I never ought to have kept a lot of rotten articles, at one franc nineteen sous! That’s where these new notions lead one to. I wanted to follow the example of these brigands; so much the better if I’m ruined by it!”

The month of July was very warm, and Denise suffered greatly in her narrow room, under the roof. So after leaving the shop, she sometimes went and fetched Pépé, and instead of going up-stairs at once, went for a stroll in the Tuileries Gardens until the gates were closed. One evening as she was walking under the chestnut-trees she suddenly stopped with surprise; a few yards off, walking straight towards her, she thought she recognised Hutin. But her heart commenced to beat violently. It was Mouret, who had dined over the water, and was hurrying along on foot to call on Madame Desforges. At the abrupt movement she made to escape him, he caught sight of her. The night was coming on, but still he recognised her.

“Ah, it’s you, mademoiselle!”

She did not reply, astonished that he should deign to stop. He, smiling, concealed his constraint beneath an air of amiable protection.

“You are still in Paris?”

“Yes, sir,” said she at last.

She was slowly drawing back, desirous of making a bow and continuing her walk. But he turned and followed her under the black shadows of the chestnut-trees. The air was getting cooler, some children were laughing in the distance, trundling their hoops.

“This is your brother, is it not?” resumed he, looking at Pépé.

The little boy, frightened by the unusual presence of a gentleman, was gravely walking by his sister’s side, holding her tightly by the hand.

“Yes, sir,” replied she once more.

She blushed, thinking of the abominable inventions circulated by Marguerite and Clara. No doubt Mouret understood why she was blushing, for he quickly added: “Listen, mademoiselle, I have to apologise to you. Yes, I should have been happy to have told you sooner how much I regret the error that has been made. You were accused too lightly of a fault. But the evil is done. I simply wanted to assure you that every one in our establishment now knows of your affection for your brothers,” he continued, with a respectful politeness to which the saleswomen in The Ladies’ Paradise were little accustomed. Denise’s confusion had increased; but her heart was filled with joy. He knew, then, that she had given herself to no one! Both remained silent; he continued beside her, regulating his walk to the child’s short steps; and the distant murmurs of the city were dying away under the black shadows of the spreading chestnut-trees. “I have only one reparation to offer you,” resumed he. “Naturally, if you would like to come back to us – ”

She interrupted him, and refused with a feverish haste. “No, sir, I cannot. Thank you all the same, but I have found another situation.”

He knew it, they had informed him she was with Robineau; and leisurely, on a footing of amiable equality, he spoke of the latter, rendering him full justice. A very intelligent fellow, but too nervous. He would certainly come to grief: Gaujean had burdened him with a very heavy business, in which they would both suffer. Denise, conquered by this familiarity, opened her mind further, and allowed it to be seen that she was for the big shops in the war between them and the small traders: she became animated, citing examples, showing herself well up in the question, even expressing new and enlightened ideas. He, charmed, listened to her in surprise; and turned round, trying to distinguish her features in the growing darkness. She seemed still the same with her simple dress and sweet face; but from this modest bashfulness, there seemed to exhale a penetrating perfume, of which he felt the powerful’ influence. Decidedly this little girl had got used to the air of Paris, she was becoming quite a woman, and was really perturbing, so sensible, with her beautiful hair, overflowing with tenderness.

“As you are on our side,” said he, laughing, “why do you stay with our adversaries? I fancy, too, they told me you lodged with Bourras.”

“A very worthy man,” murmured she.

“No, not a bit of it! he’s an old idiot, a madman who will force me to ruin him, though I should be glad to get rid of him with a fortune! Besides, your place is not in his house, which has a bad reputation. He lets to certain women – ”

But feeling that the young girl was confused, he hastened to add: “One can be respectable anywhere, and there’s even more merit in remaining so when one is so poor.”

They went on a few steps in silence. Pépé seemed to be listening with the attentive air of a sharp child. Now and again he raised his eyes to his sister, whose burning hand, quivering with sudden starts, astonished him.

“Look here!” resumed Mouret, gaily, “will you be my ambassador? I intended increasing my offer to-morrow – of proposing eighty thousand francs to Bourras. Do you speak to him first about it. Tell him he’s cutting his own throat. Perhaps he’ll listen to you, as he has a liking for you, and you’ll be doing him a real service.”

“Very well!” said Denise, smiling also, “I will deliver your message, but I am afraid I shall not succeed.”

And a fresh silence ensued, neither of them having anything more to say. He attempted to talk of her uncle Baudu; but had to give it up on seeing the young girl’s uneasiness. However, they continued to walk side by side, and at last found themselves near the Rue de Rivoli, in a path where it was still light. On coming out of the darkness of the trees it was like a sudden awakening. He understood that he could not detain her any longer.

“Good night, mademoiselle.”

“Good night, sir.”

But he did not go away. On raising his eyes he perceived in front of him, at the corner of the Rue d’Alger, the lighted windows at Madame Desforges’s, whither he was bound. And looking at Denise, whom he could now see, in the pale twilight, she appeared to him very puny beside Henriette. Why was it she touched his heart in this way? It was a stupid caprice.

“This little man is getting tired,” resumed he, just for something to say. “Remember, mind, that our house is always open to you; you’ve only to knock, and I’ll give you every compensation possible. Good night, mademoiselle.”

“Good night, sir,”

When Mouret quitted her, Denise went back under the chestnut-trees, in the black shadow. For a long time she walked on without any object, between the enormous trunks, her face burning, her head in a whirl of confused ideas. Pépé still had hold of her hand, stretching out his short legs to keep pace with her. She had forgotten him. At last he said:

“You go too quick, little mother.”

At this she sat down on a bench; and as he was tired, the child went to sleep on her lap. She held him there, nestling to her virgin bosom, her eyes lost far away in the darkness. When, an hour later on, they returned slowly to the Rue de la Michodière, she had regained her usual quiet, sensible expression.

“Hell and thunder!” shouted Bourras, when he saw her coming, “the blow is struck. That rascal of a Mouret has just bought my house.” He was half mad, and was striking himself in the middle of the shop with such outrageous gestures that he almost threatened to break the windows. “Ah! the scoundrel! It’s the fruiterer who’s written to tell me this. And how much do you think he has got for the house? One hundred and fifty thousand francs, four times its value! There’s another thief, if you like! Just fancy, he has taken advantage of my embellishments, making capital out of the fact that the house has been done up. How much longer are they going to make a fool of me?”

The thought that his money spent on paint and white-wash had brought the fruiterer a profit exasperated him. And now Mouret would be his landlord; he would have to pay him! It was beneath this detested competitor’s roof, that he must live in future! Such a thought raised his fury to the highest possible pitch.

“Ah! I could hear them digging a hole through the wall. At this moment, they are here eating out of my very plate, so to say!”

And the shop shook under his heavy fist which he banged on the counter; he made the umbrellas and the parasols dance again. Denise, bewildered, could not get in a word. She stood there, motionless, waiting for the end of his tirade; whilst Pépé, very tired, had fallen asleep on a chair. At last, when Bourras became a little calmer, she resolved to deliver Mouret’s message. No doubt the old man was irritated, but the excess even of his anger, the blind alley in which he found himself, might determine an abrupt acceptance.

“I’ve just met some one,” she commenced. “Yes, a person from The Paradise, very well informed. It appears that they are going to offer you eighty thousand francs to-morrow.”

“Eighty thousand francs!” interrupted he, in a terrible voice; “eighty thousand francs! Not for a million now!” She tried to reason with him. But at that moment the shop door opened, and she suddenly drew back, pale and silent. It was her uncle Baudu, with his yellow face and aged look. Bourras seized his neighbour by the button-hole, and roared out in his face without allowing him to say a word, as if goaded on by his presence:

“What do you think they have the cheek to offer me? Eighty thousand francs! They’ve got so far, the brigands! they think I’m going to sell myself like a prostitute. Ah! they’ve bought the house, and think they’ve now got me. Well! it’s all over, they sha’n’t have it! I might have given way, perhaps; but now it belongs to them, let them try and take it!”

“So the news is true?” said Baudu in his slow voice. “I had heard of it, and came over to know if it was so.”

“Eighty thousand francs!” repeated Bourras. “Why not a hundred thousand at once? It’s this immense sum of money that makes me indignant Do they think they can make me commit a knavish trick with their money! They sha’n’t have it, by heavens! Never, never, you hear me?”

Denise gently observed, in her calm, quiet way: “They’ll have it in nine years’ time, when your lease expires.”

And, notwithstanding her uncle’s presence, she begged of the old man to accept. The struggle was becoming impossible, he was fighting against a superior force; he would be mad to refuse the fortune offered him. But he still replied no. In nine years’ time he hoped to be dead, so as not to see it “You hear, Monsieur Baudu,” resumed he, “your niece is on their side, it’s her they have employed to corrupt me. She’s with the brigands, my word of honour!”

Baudu, who up to then had appeared not to notice Denise, now raised his head, with the morose movement that he affected when standing at his shop door, every time she passed. But, slowly, he turned round and looked at her, and his thick lips trembled.

“I know it,” replied he in a half-whisper, and he continued to look at her.

Denise, affected almost to tears, thought him greatly changed by trouble. Perhaps he was stricken with remorse for not having assisted her during the time of misery she had just passed through. Then the sight of Pépé sleeping on the chair, amidst the noise of the discussion, seemed to suddenly inspire him with compassion.

“Denise,” said he simply, “come to-morrow and have dinner with us and bring the little one. My wife and Geneviève asked me to invite you if I met you.”

She turned very red, and went up and kissed him. And as he was going away, Bourras, delighted at this reconciliation, cried out to him again: “Just talk to her, she isn’t a bad sort. As for me, the house may fall, I shall be found in the ruins.”

“Our houses are already falling, neighbour,” said Baudu with a sombre air. “We shall all be crushed under them.”

CHAPTER VIII

At this time the whole neighbourhood was talking of the great thoroughfare to be opened from the Bourse to the new Opera House, under the name of the Rue du Dix-Décembre. The expropriation judgments had just been delivered, two gangs of demolishers were already attacking the opening at the two ends, the first pulling down the old mansions in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, the other destroying the thin walls of the old Vaudeville; and one could hear the picks getting closer. The Rue de Choiseul and the Rue de la Michodière got quite excited over their condemned houses. Before a fortnight passed, the opening would make a great hole in these streets, letting in the sun and air.

But what stirred up the district still more, was the work going on at The Ladies’ Paradise. Considerable enlargements were talked of, gigantic shops having frontages in the Rue de la Michodière, the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, and the Rue Monsigny. Mouret, it was said, had made arrangements with Baron Hartmann, chairman of the Credit Immobilier, and he would occupy the whole block, except the future frontage in the Rue du Dix-Décembre, on which the baron wished to construct a rival to the Grand Hôtel. The Paradise people were buying up leases on all sides, the shops were closing, the tenants moving; and in the empty buildings an army of workmen were commencing the various alterations under a cloud of plaster. In the midst of this disorder, old Bourras’s narrow hovel was the only one that remained standing and intact, obstinately sticking between the high walls covered with masons.

When, the next day, Denise went with Pépé to her uncle Baudu’s, the street was just at that moment blocked up by a line of tumbrels discharging bricks before the Hôtel Duvillard. Baudu was standing at his shop door looking on with a gloomy air. As The Ladies’ Paradise became larger, The Old Elbeuf seemed to get smaller. The young girl thought the windows looked blacker than ever, and more and more crushed beneath the low first storey, with its prison-like bars; the damp had still further discoloured the old green sign-board, a sort of distress oozed from the whole frontage, livid in hue, and, as it were, grown thinner.

“Here you are, then!” said Baudu. “Take care! they would run right over you.”

Inside the shop, Denise experienced the same heart-broken sensation; she found it darker, invaded more than ever by the somnolence of approaching ruin; empty corners formed dark and gloomy holes, the dust was invading the counters and drawers, whilst an odour of saltpetre rose from the bales of cloth that were no longer moved about. At the desk Madame Baudu and Geneviève were standing mute and motionless, as in some solitary spot, where no one would come to disturb them. The mother was hemming some dusters. The daughter, her hands spread on her knees, was gazing at the emptiness before her.

“Good evening, aunt,” said Denise; “I’m delighted to see you again, and if I have hurt your feelings, I hope you will forgive me.”

Madame Baudu kissed her, greatly affected. “My poor child,” said she, “if I had no other troubles, you would see me gayer than this.”

“Good evening, cousin,” resumed Denise, kissing Geneviève on the cheeks.

The latter woke up with a sort of start, and returned her kisses, without finding a word to say. The two women then took up Pépé, who was holding out his little arms, and the reconciliation was complete.

“Well! it’s six o’clock, let’s go to dinner,” said Baudu. “Why haven’t you brought Jean?”

“But he was to come,” murmured Denise, embarrassed. “I saw him this morning, and he faithfully promised me. Oh! we must not wait for him; his master has kept him, I dare say.” She suspected some extraordinary adventure, and wished to apologise for him in advance.

“In that case, we will commence,” said her uncle. Then turning towards the obscure depths of the shop, he added:

“Come on, Colomban, you can dine with us. No one will come.”

Denise had not noticed the shopman. Her aunt explained to her that they had been obliged to get rid of the other salesman and the young lady. Business was getting so bad that Colomban sufficed; and even he spent many idle hours, drowsy, falling off to sleep with his eyes open. The gas was burning in the dining-room, although they were enjoying long summer days. Denise slightly shivered on entering, seized by the dampness falling from the walls. She once more beheld the round table, the places laid on the American cloth, the window drawing its air and light from the dark and fetid back yard. And these things appeared to her to be gloomier than ever, and tearful like the shop.

“Father,” said Geneviève, uncomfortable for Denise’s sake, “shall I close the window? there’s rather a bad smell.”

He smelt nothing, and seemed surprised. “Shut the window if you like,” replied he at last. “But we sha’n’t get any air then.”

And indeed they were almost stifled. It was a family dinner, very simple. After the soup, as soon as the servant had served the boiled beef, the old man as usual commenced about the people opposite. At first he showed himself very tolerant, allowing his niece to have a different opinion.

“Dear me! you are quite free to support these great hairbrained houses. Each one has his ideas, my girl. If you were not disgusted at being so disgracefully chucked out you must have strong reasons for liking them; and even if you went back again, I should think none the worse of you. No one here would be offended, would they?”

“Oh, no!” murmured Madame Baudu.

Denise quietly gave her reasons, as she had at Robineau’s: the logical evolution in business, the necessities of modern times, the greatness of these new creations, in short, the growing well-being of the public. Baudu, his eyes opened, and his mouth clamming, listened with a visible tension of intelligence. Then, when she had finished, he shook his head.

“That’s all phantasmagoria, you know. Business is business, there’s no getting over that. I own that they succeed, but that’s all. For a long time I thought they would smash up; yes, I expected that, waiting patiently – you remember? Well, no, it appears that now-a-days thieves make fortunes, whilst honest people die of hunger. That’s what we’ve come to. I’m obliged to bow to facts. And I do bow, on my word, I do bow!” A deep anger was gradually rising within him. All at once he flourished his fork. “But The Old Elbeuf will never give way! I said as much to Bourras, you know, ‘Neighbour, you’re going over to the cheapjacks; your paint and your varnish are a disgrace.’”

“Eat your dinner!” interrupted Madame Baudu, feeling anxious, on seeing him so excited.

“Wait a bit, I want my niece thoroughly to understand my motto. Just listen, my girl: I’m like this decanter, I don’t budge. They succeed, so much the worse for them! As for me, I protest – that’s all!”

The servant brought in a piece of roast veal. He cut it up with his trembling hands; but he no longer had his correct glance, his skill in weighing the portions. The consciousness of his defeat deprived him of the confidence he used to have as a respected employer. Pépé thought his uncle was getting angry, and they had to pacify him, by giving him some dessert, some biscuits which were near his plate. Then Baudu, lowering his voice, tried to talk of something else. For a moment he spoke of the demolitions going on, approving of the Rue du Dix-Décembre, the cutting of which would certainly improve the business of the neighbourhood. But then again he returned to The Ladies’ Paradise; everything brought him back to it, it was a kind of complaint. They were covered with plaster, and business was stopped since the builders’ carts had commenced to block up the street. It would soon be really ridiculous, in its immensity; the customers would lose themselves. Why not have the central markets at once? And, in spite of his wife’s supplicating looks, notwithstanding his own effort, he went on from the works to the amount of business done in the big shop. Was it not inconceivable? In less than four years they had increased their figures five-fold; the annual receipts, formerly eight million francs, now attained the sum of forty millions, according to the last balance-sheet. In fact it was a piece of folly, a thing that had never been seen before, and against which it was perfectly useless to struggle. They were always increasing, they had now a thousand employees and twenty-eight departments. These twenty-eight departments enraged him more than anything else. No doubt they had duplicated a few, but others were quite new; for instance, a furniture department, and a department for fancy goods. The idea! Fancy goods! Really these people were not at all proud, they would end by selling fish. Baudu, though affecting to respect Denise’s opinions, attempted to convert her.