The Ladies' Paradise

"This is the Valenciennes for my daughter," said she. "It's an inch and a half wide. Isn't it delicious? One franc ninety centimes the metre."

The lace passed from hand to hand. The ladies were astonished. Mouret assured them that he sold these little trimmings at cost price. However, Madame Marty had closed the bag, as if to conceal certain things she must not show. But after the success obtained by the Valenciennes she was unable to resist the temptation of taking out a handkerchief.

"There was this handkerchief as well. Real Brussels, my dear. Oh! a bargain! Twenty francs!"

And after that the bag became inexhaustible. She blushed with pleasure, at each fresh article she took out. There was a Spanish blonde-lace cravat, thirty francs: she hadn't wanted it, but the shopman had sworn it was the last one in stock, and that in future the price would be raised. Next came a Chantilly veil: rather dear, fifty francs; if she didn't wear it she could make it do for her daughter.

"Really, lace is so pretty!" she repeated with her nervous laugh. "Once I'm inside I could buy everything."

"And this?" asked Madame de Boves, taking up and examining some guipure.

"That," replied she, "is for an insertion. There are twenty-six yards – a franc the yard. Just fancy!"

"But," asked Madame Bourdelais, in surprise, "What are you going to do with it?"

"I'm sure I don't know. But it was such a funny pattern!"

At that moment however, she chanced to raise her eyes and perceived her terrified husband in front of her. He had turned paler than ever, his whole person expressive of the patient, resigned anguish of a powerless man, witnessing the reckless expenditure of his dearly earned salary. Every fresh bit of lace to him meant disaster; bitter days of teaching, long journeys to pupils through the mud, the whole constant effort of his life resulting in secret misery, the hell of a necessitous household. And she, perceiving the increasing wildness of his look, wanted to catch up the veil, cravat and handkerchief and put them out of sight, moving her feverish hands about and repeating with forced laughter: "You'll get me a scolding from my husband. I assure you, my dear, I've been very reasonable; for there was a large lace flounce at five hundred francs, oh! a marvel!"

"Why didn't you buy it?" asked Madame Guibal, calmly. "Monsieur Marty is the most gallant of men."

The poor professor was obliged to bow and say that his wife was quite free to buy what she liked. But at thought of the danger to which that large flounce had exposed him, an icy shiver sped down his back; and as Mouret was just at that moment affirming that the new shops increased the comfort of middle-class households, he glared at him with a terrible expression, the flash of hatred of a timid man who would like to throttle the destroyer but dares not.

But the ladies had still retained possession of the lace. They were intoxicating themselves with their prolonged contemplation of it. The several pieces were unrolled and then passed from one to the other, drawing them all still closer together, linking them, as it were, with delicate meshes. On their laps there was a continual caress of this wondrously delicate tissue amidst which their guilty fingers fondly lingered. They still kept Mouret a close prisoner and overwhelmed him with fresh questions. As the daylight continued to decline, he was now and again obliged to bend his head, grazing their hair with his beard, as he examined a mesh, or indicated a design. Nevertheless in this soft voluptuousness of twilight, in this warm feminine atmosphere, Mouret still remained the master whatever the rapture he affected. He seemed to be a woman himself, they felt penetrated, overcome by the delicate sense of their secret passions which he possessed, and surrendered themselves to him quite captivated; whilst he, certain that he had them at his mercy, appeared like the despotic monarch of finery, enthroned above them all.

"Oh, Monsieur Mouret! Monsieur Mouret!" they stammered in low, rapturous voices, amidst the increasing gloom of the drawing-room.

The last pale gleams of the heavens were dying away on the brass-work of the furniture. The laces alone retained a snowy reflection against the dark dresses of the ladies, who in a confused group around the young man had a vague appearance of kneeling, worshipping women. A final glow still shone on one side of the silver teapot, a gleam like that of a night-light, burning in an alcove balmy with the perfume of tea. But suddenly the servant entered with two lamps, and the charm was destroyed. The drawing-room awoke, light and cheerful once more. Madame Marty replaced her lace in her little bag and Madame de Boves ate another sponge cake, whilst Henriette who had risen began talking in a low tone to the baron, near one of the windows.

"He's a charming fellow," said the baron.

"Isn't he?" she exclaimed, with the involuntary impulse of a woman in love.

He smiled, and looked at her with paternal indulgence. This was the first time he had seen her so completely conquered; and, too high-minded to suffer from it, he experienced nothing but compassion at seeing her in the hands of this handsome fellow, seemingly so tender and yet so cold-hearted. He thought he ought to warn her, and so in a joking way he muttered: "Take care, my dear, or he'll eat you all up."

A flash of jealousy darted from Henriette's fine eyes. Doubtless she understood that Mouret had simply made use of her to get at the baron; but she vowed that she would render him mad with passion, he whose hurried style of love-making was instinct with the facile charm of a song thrown to the four winds of heaven. "Oh," said she, affecting to joke in her turn, "the lamb always finishes by eating up the wolf."

Thereupon the baron, greatly amused, encouraged her with a nod. Could she be the woman who was to avenge all the others?

When Mouret, after reminding Vallagnosc that he wanted to show him his machine at work, came up to take his leave, the baron retained him near the window opposite the gardens, now steeped in darkness. He was at last yielding to the young man's power of fascination; confidence had come to him on seeing him amidst those ladies. Both conversed for a moment in a low tone, and then the banker exclaimed: "Well, I'll look into the affair. It's settled if your Monday's sale proves as important as you expect."

They shook hands, and Mouret, delighted, took his leave, for he never enjoyed his dinner unless before sitting down at table he had been to glance at the day's receipts at The Ladies' Paradise.

CHAPTER IV

On the following Monday, the 10th of October, a bright sun of victory pierced through the grey clouds which had darkened Paris during the previous week. There had even been a drizzle throughout the previous night, a sort of watery mist whose moisture had dirtied the streets; but in the early morning, thanks to the sharp breezes driving the clouds away, the pavement had become drier; and now the blue sky displayed a limpid, spring-like gaiety.

Thus, already at eight o'clock, The Ladies' Paradise blazed forth beneath the clear sun-rays in all the glory of its great sale of winter novelties. Flags were flying at the door, pieces of woollens were flapping about in the fresh morning air, animating the Place Gaillon with the bustle of a country fair; whilst along both streets the windows developed symphonious displays whose brilliant tones were yet heightened by the clearness of the glass. It was like a debauch of colour, a street pleasure bursting forth, a wealth of purchasable articles publicly displayed, on which everybody could feast their eyes.

But at this early hour very few people entered, a few customers pressed for time, housewives of the neighbourhood, women desirous of avoiding the afternoon crush. Behind the stuffs which decorated the shop, one could divine that it was empty, under arms and waiting for customers, with its waxed floors and its counters overflowing with goods.

The busy morning crowd barely glanced at the windows, as it passed without slackening its steps. In the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin and on the Place Gaillon, where the vehicles were to take their stand, there were at nine o'clock only two cabs. The inhabitants of the district, and especially the small traders, stirred up by such a show of streamers and decorations, alone formed little groups in the doorways and at the street corners, gazing at the Paradise and venting bitter remarks. What most filled them with indignation was the sight of one of the four delivery vans just introduced by Mouret, which was standing in the Rue de la Michodière, in front of the delivery office. These vans were green, picked out with yellow and red, their brilliantly varnished panels gleaming with gold and purple in the sunlight. This particular one with its brand-new medley of colours, and the name of the establishment painted on either side, whilst up above appeared an announcement of the day's sale, finished by going off at the fast trot of a splendid horse, after being filled with parcels left over from the previous night; and Baudu, who was standing on the threshold of The Old Elbeuf, watched it rolling off towards the boulevard, where it disappeared to spread amid a starry radiance the hated name of The Ladies' Paradise all over Paris.

Meantime, a few cabs were arriving and forming in line. Each time a customer entered, there was a movement amongst the shop messengers, who dressed in livery consisting of a light green coat and trousers, and red and yellow striped waistcoat were drawn up under the lofty doorway. Jouve, the inspector and retired captain, was also there, in a frock-coat and white tie, wearing his decoration as a mark of respectability and probity, and receiving the ladies with a gravely polite air. He bent over them to point out the departments, and then they vanished into the vestibule, which had been transformed into an oriental saloon.

From the very threshold it was a marvel, a surprise, which enchanted all of them. It was to Mouret that this idea had occurred. Before all others, he had been the first to purchase at very advantageous rates in the Levant a collection of old and new carpets, articles then but seldom seen and only sold at curiosity shops, at high prices; and he intended to flood the market with them, selling them at but little more than cost price, and simply utilizing them as a splendid decoration which would attract the best class of art customers to his establishment. From the centre of the Place Gaillon you could see this oriental saloon, composed solely of carpets and door-curtains hung up under his direction. The ceiling was covered with a quantity of Smyrna carpets, whose intricate designs stood out boldly on red grounds. Then from each side there hung Syrian and Karamanian door-curtains, streaked with green, yellow, and vermilion; Diarbekir hangings of a commoner type, rough to the touch, like shepherds' cloaks; and carpets which could also be used as door-curtains – long Ispahan, Teheran, and Kermancha rugs, broader ones from Schoumaka and Madras, a strange florescence of peonies and palms, fantastic blooms in a garden of dreamland. On the floor too were more carpets, a heap of greasy fleeces: in the centre was an Agra carpet, an extraordinary article with a white ground and a broad, delicate blue border, through which ran a violet-coloured pattern of exquisite design. And then, here, there and everywhere came a display of marvels; Mecca carpets with velvety reflections, prayer carpets from Daghestan with the symbolic points, Kurdistan carpets covered with blooming flowers; and finally, in a corner a pile of cheap goods, Gherdes, Koula, and Kirchur rugs from fifteen francs a-piece.

This seeming and sumptuous tent, fit for a caliph, was furnished with divans and arm-chairs, made of camel sacks, some ornamented with variegated lozenges, others with primitive roses. Turkey, Arabia, Persia and the Indies were all there. They had emptied the palaces, looted the mosques and bazaars. A tawny gold prevailed in the weft of the old carpets, whose faded tints retained still a sombre warmth, like that of an extinguished furnace, a beautiful mellow hue suggestive of the old masters. Visions of the East floated before you at sight of all the luxury of this barbarous art, amid the strong odour which the old wool retained of the land of vermin and of the rising sun.

In the morning at eight o'clock, when Denise, who was to enter on her duties that very Monday, crossed the oriental saloon, she stopped short, lost in astonishment, unable to recognise the shop entrance, and quite overcome by this harem-like decoration planted at the door. A messenger having shown her to the top of the house, and handed her over to Madame Cabin, who cleaned and looked after the rooms, this person installed her in No. 7, where her box had already been placed. It was a narrow cell, opening on the roof by a skylight, and furnished with a small bed, a walnut-wood wardrobe, a toilet-table, and two chairs. Twenty similar rooms ran along the yellow-painted convent-like corridor; and, of the thirty-five young ladies in the house, the twenty who had no relations in Paris slept there, whilst the remaining fifteen lodged outside, a few with borrowed aunts and cousins. Denise at once took off her shabby woollen dress, worn thin by brushing and mended at the sleeves, the only gown that she had brought from Valognes; and then donned the uniform of her department, a black silk dress which had been altered for her and which she found ready on the bed. This dress was still too large, too wide across the shoulders; but she was so flurried by her emotion that she paid no heed to petty questions of coquetry. She had never worn silk before; and when rigged out in this unwonted finery she went downstairs again and looked at her shining skirt, she felt quite ashamed of the noisy rustling of the silk.

Down below, as she was entering her department, a quarrel burst out and she heard Clara exclaim in a shrill voice:

"Madame, I came in before her."

"It isn't true," replied Marguerite. "She pushed past me at the door, but I had already one foot in the room."

The matter in dispute was their inscription on the list of turns, which regulated the sales. The girls wrote their names on a slate in the order of their arrival, and whenever one of them had served a customer, she re-inscribed her name beneath the others. Madame Aurélie finished by deciding in Marguerite's favour.

"Always some injustice here!" muttered Clara, furiously.

However Denise's entry reconciled these young ladies. They looked at her, then smiled at each other. How could a person truss herself up in that way! The young girl went and awkwardly wrote her name on the list, where she found herself last. Meanwhile, Madame Aurélie examined her with an anxious pout and could not help saying:

"My dear, two like you could get into your dress; you must have it taken in. Besides, you don't know how to dress yourself. Come here and let me arrange you a bit."

Then she placed her before one of the tall glasses alternating with the massive doors of the cupboards containing the dresses. The spacious apartment, surrounded by these mirrors and carved oak wood-work, its floor covered with red carpet of a large pattern, resembled the commonplace drawing-room of an hotel, traversed by a continual stream of travellers. The young ladies dressed in regulation silk, and promenading their charms about, without ever sitting down on the dozen chairs reserved for the customers, completed the resemblance. Between two button-holes of their dress bodies they all wore a long pencil, with its point in the air; and protruding from their pockets, you could see the white leaves of a book of debit-notes. Several ventured to wear jewellery – rings, brooches and chains; but their great coquetry, the point of display in which, given the forced uniformity of their dress they all struggled for pre-eminence, was their hair, hair ever overflowing, its volume augmented by plaits and chignons when their own did not suffice, and combed, curled, and decked in every possible fashion.

"Pull the waist down in front," said Madame Aurélie to Denise. "There, you now have no hump on your back. And your hair, how can you massacre it like that? It would be superb, if you only took a little trouble."

This was, in fact, Denise's only beauty. Of a beautiful flaxen hue, it fell to her ankles: and when she did it up, it was so troublesome that she simply rolled it in a knot, keeping it together with the strong teeth of a bone comb. Clara, greatly annoyed by the sight of this abundant hair, affected to laugh at it, so strange did it look, twisted up anyhow with savage grace. She made a sign to a saleswoman in the under-linen department, a girl with a broad face and agreeable manner. The two departments, which adjoined one another, were ever at variance, still the young ladies sometimes joined together in laughing at other people.

"Mademoiselle Cugnot, just look at that mane," said Clara, whom Marguerite was nudging, also feigning to be on the point of bursting into laughter.

But Mademoiselle Cugnot was not in the humour for joking. She had been looking at Denise for a moment and remembered what she had suffered herself during the first few months after her arrival in the establishment.

"Well, what?" said she. "Everybody hasn't got such a mane as that!"

And thereupon she returned to her place, leaving the two others crestfallen. Denise, who had heard everything, followed her with a glance of gratitude, while Madame Aurélie gave her a book of debit-notes with her name on it, remarking:

"To-morrow you must get yourself up better; and now, try and pick up the ways of the house, and wait your turn for selling. To-day's work will be very hard; we shall be able to judge of your capabilities."

Despite her prophecies, the department still remained deserted; very few customers came to buy mantles at this early hour. The young ladies husbanded their strength, prudently preparing for the exertion of the afternoon. Denise, intimidated by the thought that they were watching her, sharpened her pencil, for the sake of something to do; then, imitating the others, she stuck it in her bosom, between two buttonholes, and summoned up all her courage, for it was necessary that she should conquer a position. On the previous evening she had been told that she was accepted as a probationer, that is to say, without any fixed salary; she would simply have the commission and allowance on what she sold. However, she fully hoped to earn twelve hundred francs a year even in this way, knowing that the good saleswomen earned as much as two thousand, when they liked to take the trouble. Her expenses were regulated; a hundred francs a month would enable her to pay Pépé's board and lodging, assist Jean, who did not earn a sou, and procure some clothes and linen for herself. Only, in order to attain to this large amount, she would have to prove industrious and pushing, taking no notice of the ill-will displayed by those around her but fighting for her share and even snatching it from her comrades if necessary. While she was thus working herself up for the struggle, a tall young man, passing the department, smiled at her; and when she saw that it was Deloche, who had been engaged in the lace department on the previous day, she returned his smile, happy at the friendship which thus presented itself and accepting his recognition as a good omen.

At half-past nine a bell rang for the first luncheon. Then a fresh peal announced the second; and still no customers appeared. The second-hand, Madame Frédéric, who, with the sulky harshness of widowhood, delighted in prophesying disasters, declared curtly that the day was lost, that they would not see a soul, that they might close the cupboards and go away; predictions which clouded the flat face of Marguerite who was eager to make money, whilst Clara, with her runaway-horse appearance, already began dreaming of an excursion to the woods of Verrières should the house really fail. As for Madame Aurélie, she remained silent and serious, promenading her Cæsarian countenance about the empty department, like a general who has responsibility whether in victory or in defeat.

About eleven o'clock a few ladies appeared; and Denise's turn for serving had arrived when the approach of a customer was signalled.

"The fat old girl from the country – you know whom I mean," murmured Marguerite to Clara.