The Ladies' Paradise

"Why?" declared Mouret, when he could at last speak, "one can sell what one likes when one knows how to sell! Therein lies our triumph."

And then with his southern enthusiasm, he pictured the new business at work in warm, glowing phrases which brought everything vividly before the eyes. First came the wonderful power resulting from the assemblage of goods, all accumulated on one point and sustaining and facilitating the sale of one another. There was never any stand-still, the article of the season was always on hand; and from counter to counter the customer found herself caught and subjugated, at one buying the material for a gown; at another cotton and trimming, elsewhere a mantle, in fact everything necessary to complete her costume; while in addition there were all the unforeseen purchases, chases, a surrender to a longing for the useless and the pretty. Next he began to sing the praises of the plain figure system. The great revolution in the business sprang from this fortunate inspiration. If the old-fashioned small shops were dying out it was because they could not struggle against the low prices which the tickets guaranteed. Competition now went on under the very eyes of the public; a look in the windows enabled people to contrast the prices of different establishments; and each shop in turn was lowering its rates, contenting itself with the smallest possible profit. There could be no deceit, no long prepared stroke of fortune by selling an article at double its value; there were simply current operations, a regular percentage levied on all goods, and success depended solely on the skilful working of the sales which became the larger from the very circumstance that they were carried on openly and honestly. Was it not altogether an astonishing development? And it was already revolutionizing the markets and transforming Paris, for it was made of woman's flesh and blood.

"I have the women, I don't care a hang for the rest!" exclaimed Mouret, with a brutal frankness born of his passion.

At this cry Baron Hartmann appeared somewhat moved. His smile lost its touch of irony and he glanced at the young man, gradually won over by the confidence he displayed and feeling a growing friendship for him.

"Hush!" he murmured, paternally, "they will hear you."

But the ladies were now all speaking at once, so excited that they did not even listen to each other. Madame de Boves was finishing the description of an evening-dress; a mauve silk tunic, draped and caught up by bows of lace; the bodice cut very low, with similar bows of lace on the shoulders.

"You'll see," said she. "I am having a bodice made like it, with some satin – "

"For my part," interrupted Madame Bourdelais, "I was bent on buying some velvet. Oh! such a bargain!"

Then suddenly Madame Marty asked: "How much did the silk cost?"

And off they started again, all together. Madame Guibal, Henriette, and Blanche were measuring, cutting out, and making up. It was a pillage of material, a ransacking of all the shops, an appetite for luxury seeking satisfaction in toilettes envied and dreamed of – with such happiness at finding themselves in an atmosphere of finery, that they buried themselves in it, as in warm air necessary to their existence.

Mouret had glanced towards the larger drawing-room, and in a few phrases, whispered in the baron's ear, as if he were confiding to him one of those amorous secrets which men sometimes venture to reveal among themselves, he finished explaining the mechanism of modern commerce. And, above all that he had already spoken of, dominating everything else, appeared the exploitation of woman to which everything conduced, the capital incessantly renewed, the system of assembling goods together, the attraction of cheapness and the tranquillizing effect of the marking in plain figures. It was for woman that all the establishments were struggling in wild competition; it was woman whom they were continually catching in the snares of their bargains, after bewildering her with their displays. They had awakened new desires in her flesh; they constituted an immense temptation, before which she fatally succumbed, yielding at first to reasonable purchases of articles needed in the household, then tempted by her coquetry, and finally subjugated and devoured. By increasing their business tenfold and popularizing luxury, they – the drapers – became a terrible instrument of prodigality, ravaging households, and preparing mad freaks of fashion which proved ever more and more costly. And if woman reigned in their shops like a queen, cajoled, flattered and overwhelmed with attentions, she was one on whom her subjects traffic, and who pays for each fresh caprice, with a drop of her blood. From beneath the very gracefulness of his gallantry, Mouret thus allowed the baron to divine the brutality of a Jew who sells woman by the pound weight. He raised a temple to her, caused her to be steeped in incense by a legion of shopmen, prepared the ritual of a new cultus, thinking of nothing but woman and ever seeking to imagine more powerful fascinations. But, behind her back, when he had emptied her purse and shattered her nerves, he remained full of the secret scorn of a man to whom a woman has been foolish enough to yield.

"Once have the women on your side," he whispered to the baron, laughing boldly, "and you could sell the very world."

Now the baron understood. A few sentences had sufficed, he guessed the rest, and such a gallant exploitation inflamed him, stirring up the memories of his past life of pleasure. His eyes twinkled in a knowing way, and he ended by looking with an air of admiration at the inventor of this machine for devouring the female sex. It was really clever. And then he made precisely the same remark as Bourdoncle, a remark suggested to him by his long experience: "They'll make you suffer for it, by and by, you know," said he.

But Mouret shrugged his shoulders with an air of overwhelming disdain. They all belonged to him, they were his property, and he belonged to none of them. After deriving his fortune and his pleasures from them he intended to throw them all over for those who might still find their account in them. It was the rational, cold disdain of a Southerner and a speculator.

"Well! my dear baron," he asked in conclusion, "will you join me? Does this affair appear possible to you?"

Albeit half conquered, the baron did not wish to enter into any engagement yet. A doubt remained beneath the charm which was gradually operating on him; and he was going to reply in an evasive manner, when a pressing call from the ladies spared him the trouble. Amidst light bursts of laughter voices were repeating "Monsieur Mouret! Monsieur Mouret!"

And as the latter, annoyed at being interrupted, pretended not to hear, Madame de Boves, who had risen a moment previously, came as far as the door of the little drawing-room.

"You are wanted, Monsieur Mouret. It isn't very gallant of you to bury yourself in a corner to talk over business."

Thereupon he decided to join the ladies, with an apparent good grace, a well-feigned air of rapture which quite astonished the baron. Both of them rose and passed into the other room.

"But I am quite at your service, ladies," said Mouret on entering, a smile on his lips.

He was greeted with an acclamation of triumph and was obliged to step forward; the ladies making room for him in their midst. The sun had just set behind the trees in the gardens, the daylight was departing, delicate shadows were gradually invading the spacious apartment. It was the emotional hour of twilight, that quiet voluptuous moment which reigns in Parisian flats between the dying brightness of the street and the lighting of the lamps in the kitchen. Monsieur de Boves and Vallagnosc, still standing before a window, cast shadows upon the carpet: whilst, motionless in the last gleam of light which came in by the other window, Monsieur Marty, who had quietly entered, shewed his poverty-stricken silhouette, his worn-out, well-brushed frock coat, and his pale face wan from constant teaching and the more haggard as what he had heard of the ladies' conversation had quite upset him.

"Is your sale still fixed for next Monday?" Madame Marty was just asking.

"Certainly, madame," replied Mouret, in a flute-like voice, an actor's voice, which he assumed when speaking to women.

Henriette thereupon intervened. "We are all going, you know. They say you are preparing wonders."

"Oh! wonders!" he murmured, with an air of modest fatuity. "I simply try to deserve your patronage."

But they pressed him with questions: Madame Bourdelais, Madame Guibal, even Blanche wanted to know something.

"Come, give us some particulars," repeated Madame de Boves, persistently. "You are making us die of curiosity."

And they were surrounding him, when Henriette observed that he had not even taken a cup of tea. At this they were plunged into desolation and four of them set about serving him, stipulating however that he must answer them afterwards. Henriette poured the tea out, Madame Marty held the cup, whilst Madame de Boves and Madame Bourdelais contended for the honour of sweetening it. Then, when he had declined to sit down, and began to drink his tea slowly, standing up in the midst of them, they all drew nearer, imprisoning him in the circle of their skirts; and with their heads raised and their eyes sparkling, they smiled upon him.

"And what about silk, your Paris Delight which all the papers are talking of?" resumed Madame Marty, impatiently.

"Oh!" he replied, "it's an extraordinary article, large-grained faille, supple and strong. You'll see it, ladies, and you'll see it nowhere else, for we have bought the exclusive right to it."

"Really! a fine silk at five francs sixty centimes!" said Madame Bourdelais, enthusiastic. "One can hardly believe it."

Ever since the advertisements and puffs had appeared, this silk had occupied a considerable place in their daily life. They talked of it, promising themselves some of it, all agog with desire and doubt. And, beneath the inquisitive chatter with which they overwhelmed the young man, one could divine their different temperaments as purchasers. Madame Marty, carried away by her rage for spending money, bought everything at The Ladies' Paradise without selecting, just as things chanced to be placed in the windows or on the counters. Madame Guibal on the other hand walked about the shop for hours without ever buying anything, happy and satisfied in simply feasting her eyes; Madame de Boves, short of money and always tortured by some immoderate desire, nourished a feeling of rancour against the goods she could not carry away with her; Madame Bourdelais, with the sharp eyes of a careful and practical housewife, made straight for the bargains, availing herself of the big establishments with such skill that she saved a lot of money; and lastly, Henriette, having very elegant tastes, only purchased certain articles there, such as gloves, hosiery, and her coarser linen.

"We have other stuffs of astonishing cheapness and richness," continued Mouret, in his musical voice. "For instance, I recommend you our Golden Grain, a taffeta of incomparable brilliancy. In the fancy silks there are some charming lines, designs specially chosen from among thousands by our buyer; and in velvets you will find an exceedingly rich collection of shades. I warn you, however, that cloth will be greatly worn this year; you'll see our matelassés and our cheviots."

They had ceased to interrupt him, and drew yet closer, their lips parted by vague smiles, their faces eagerly out-stretched as if their whole beings were springing towards the tempter. Their eyes grew dim, and slight quivers ran through them but he meantime retained his calm, conquering air, amidst the intoxicating perfumes which their hair exhaled; and between each sentence he continued to sip a little of his tea, the aroma of which softened those sharper odours. At sight of such a power of fascination, so well controlled, strong enough to play with woman without being overcome by the intoxication which she diffuses, Baron Hartmann, who had not ceased to look at Mouret, felt his admiration increasing.

"So cloth will be worn?" resumed Madame Marty, whose rugged face sparkled with coquettish passion. "I must have a look at it."

Madame Bourdelais, who kept a cool look-out, in her turn remarked: "Your remnant sales take place on Thursdays, don't they? I shall wait. I have all my little ones to clothe." And turning her delicate blonde head towards the mistress of the house, she asked: "Sauveur is still your dressmaker, I suppose?"

"Yes," replied Henriette, "Sauveur is very dear, but she is the only person in Paris who knows how to make a dress-body. Besides, Monsieur Mouret may say what he likes but she has the prettiest designs, designs that are not seen anywhere else. I can't bear to see the same dresses as mine on every woman's back."

At first Mouret slightly smiled. Then he intimated that Madame Sauveur bought her material at his shop; no doubt she went to the manufacturers direct for certain designs of which she acquired the sole right of sale: but for black silks, for instance, she watched for The Paradise bargains, laying in a considerable stock, which she disposed of at double and treble the price she gave. "Thus I am quite sure that her buyers will snap up our Paris Delight. Why should she go to the manufacturers and pay dearer for this silk than she would at my place? On my word of honour, we shall sell it at a loss."

This was a decisive blow for the ladies. The idea of getting goods below cost price awoke in them all the natural greed of woman, whose enjoyment in purchasing is doubled when she thinks that she is robbing the tradesman. He knew the sex to be incapable of resisting anything cheap.

"But we sell everything for nothing!" he exclaimed gaily, taking up Madame Desforges's fan, which lay behind him on the table. "For instance, here's this fan. How much do you say it cost."

"The Chantilly cost twenty-five francs, and the mounting two hundred," said Henriette.

"Well, the Chantilly isn't dear. However, we have the same at eighteen francs; as for the mount, my dear madame, it's a shameful robbery. I should not dare to sell one like it for more than ninety francs."

"Just what I said!" exclaimed Madame Bourdelais.

"Ninety francs!" murmured Madame de Boves, "one must be very poor indeed to go without one at that price."

She had taken up the fan, and was again examining it with her daughter Blanche; and, over her large regular face and in her big, sleepy eyes, spread an expression of suppressed and despairing longing which she could not satisfy. The fan once more went the round of the ladies, amidst various remarks and exclamations. Monsieur de Boves and Vallagnosc, meantime, had left the window, and whilst the former returned to his place behind Madame Guibal, whose charms he again began to admire, with his correct and superior air, the young man leant over Blanche, endeavouring to think of some agreeable remark.

"Don't you think it rather gloomy, mademoiselle, that white mount and the black lace?"

"Oh," she replied, gravely, not a blush colouring her inflated cheeks, "I saw one made of mother-of-pearl and white feathers. Something truly virginal!"

Then Monsieur de Boves, who had doubtless observed the distressful glances with which his wife was following the fan, at last added his word to the conversation. "Those flimsy things soon break," said he.

"Of course they do!" declared Madame Guibal, with a pout, affecting an air of indifference. "I'm tired of having mine mended."

For several minutes, Madame Marty, very much excited by the conversation, had been feverishly turning her red leather bag about on her lap, for she had not yet been able to show her purchases. She was burning with a sort of sensual desire to display them; and, suddenly forgetting her husband's presence, she opened the bag and took out of it a few yards of narrow lace wound on a piece of cardboard.