The Ladies' Paradise

"You ought to get hold of her," said Favier, in his sly, artful way.

"That's a good idea!" exclaimed Hutin. "If she comes here I'll let her in for something extensive; I want a five-franc piece!"

In the glove department there was quite a row of ladies seated before the narrow counter covered with green velvet and edged with nickel silver; and before them the smiling shopmen were heaping up flat boxes of a bright pink, taken out of the counter itself, and resembling the ticketed drawers of a secrétaire. Mignot, in particular, was bending his pretty doll-like face forward, and striving to impart tender inflections to his thick Parisian voice. He had already sold Madame Desforges a dozen pairs of kid gloves, the Paradise gloves, one of the specialties of the house. She had then asked for three pairs of Suèdes, and was now trying on some Saxon gloves, for fear the size should not be exact.

"Oh! the fit is perfect, madame," repeated Mignot. "Six and a quarter would be too large for a hand like yours."

Half-lying on the counter, he held her hand, taking her fingers one by one and slipping the glove on with a long, renewed, persistently caressing touch, looking at her the while as if he expected to see in her face some sign of pleasure. But she, with her elbow on the velvet counter and her wrist raised, surrendered her fingers to him with the same unconcerned air as that with which she gave her foot to her maid so that she might button her boot. For her indeed he was not a man; she utilized his services with the disdain she always showed for servants and did not even look at him.

"I don't hurt you, madame?" he inquired.

She replied "No," with a shake of the head. The smell of the Saxon gloves – a savage smell resembling sugared musk – troubled her as a rule, but seated at this commonplace counter she did not notice it.

"And what next, madame?" asked Mignot.

"Nothing, thanks. Be good enough to carry the parcel to pay-desk No. 10, for Madame Desforges."

Being a constant customer, she gave her name at a pay-desk, and had each purchase sent there without requiring a shopman to follow her. When she had gone away, Mignot turned towards his neighbour and winked, and would have liked him to believe that some wonderful things had just taken place.

Meanwhile, Madame Desforges continued her purchases. She turned to the left, stopping in the linen department to procure some dusters; then she walked round and went as far as the woollen department at the further end of the gallery. As she was well pleased with her cook, she wanted to make her a present of a dress. The woollen department overflowed with a compact crowd; all the lower middle-class women were there, feeling the stuffs and absorbed in mute calculations; and she was obliged to sit down for a moment. The shelves were piled up with great rolls of material which the salesmen took down one by one, with a sudden pull. They were indeed getting confused with all the litter on the counters, where stuffs were mingling and slipping down. It was a sea of neutral tints, the dull hues of woollens – iron-greys, yellow-greys and blue-greys, with here and there a Scotch tartan and a blood-red flannel showing brightly. And the white tickets on the pieces looked like a scanty shower of snow flakes, dotting a dark December soil.

Behind a pile of poplin, Liénard was joking with a tall bare-headed girl, a work-girl of the neigbourhood, sent by her mistress to match some merino. He detested these big-sale days, which tired him to death, and endeavoured to shirk his work, getting plenty of money from his father and not caring a fig about the business but doing only just enough to avoid being dismissed.

"Listen to me, Mademoiselle Fanny," he was saying; "you are always in a hurry. Did the striped vicuna suit the other day? I shall come and see you, and ask for my commission, mind."

But the girl ran off, laughing, and Liénard found himself before Madame Desforges, whom he could not help asking: "What can I serve you with, madame?"

She wanted a dress, not too dear but yet of strong stuff. Liénard, with the view of sparing his arms, which was his principal thought, manœuvred so as to make her take one of the stuffs already unfolded on the counter. There were cashmeres, serges and vicunas there, and he declared that there was nothing better to be had, for you could never wear them out. However, none of these seemed to satisfy her. On one of the shelves she had observed a blue shalloon, which she wished to see. So he made up his mind at last, and took down the roll, but she thought the material too rough. Then he showed her a cheviot, some diagonals, some greys, every sort of woollens, which she felt out of curiosity, just for the pleasure of doing so, decided at heart to take no matter what. The young man was thus obliged to empty the highest shelves; his shoulders cracked and the counter vanished under the silky grain of the cashmeres and poplins, the rough nap of the cheviots and the tufty down of the vicunas; there were samples of every material and every tint. Though she had not the least wish to buy any, she even asked to see some grenadine and some Chambéry gauze. Then, when she had seen enough, she remarked:

"Oh! after all, the first is the best; it's for my cook. Yes, the narrow ribbed serge, the one at two francs." And when Liénard had measured it, pale with suppressed anger, she added: "Have the goodness to take that to pay-desk No. 10, for Madame Desforges."

Just as she was going away, she recognised Madame Marty near her, accompanied by her daughter Valentine, a tall girl of fourteen, thin and bold, who already cast a woman's covetous looks on the materials.

"Ah! it's you, dear madame?"

"Yes, dear madame; what a crowd – is it not?"

"Oh! don't speak of it, it's stifling. And such a success! Have you seen the oriental saloon?"

"Superb – wonderful!"

Thereupon, amidst all the jostling, pushed hither and thither by the growing crowd of modest purses rushing upon the cheap woollen goods, they went into ecstasies over the exhibition of Eastern carpets. And afterwards Madame Marty explained that she was looking for some material for a mantle; but she had not quite made up her mind and wanted to see some woollen matelassé.

"Look, mamma," murmured Valentine, "it's too common."

"Come to the silk department," then said Madame Desforges, "you must see their famous Paris Delight."

Madame Marty hesitated for a moment. It would be very dear, and she had faithfully promised her husband to be reasonable! She had been buying for an hour, quite a pile of articles was following her already: a muff and some quilling for herself and some stockings for her daughter. She finished by saying to the shopman who was showing her the matelassé:

"Well – no; I'm going to the silk department; you've nothing to suit me."

The shopman then took up the articles already purchased and walked off before the ladies.

In the silk department there was also a crowd, the principal crush being opposite the inside display arranged by Hutin, to which Mouret had given the finishing touches. This was at the further end of the hall, around one of the slender wrought-iron columns which supported the glass roof. A perfect torrent of material, a billowy cascade fell from above, spreading out more and more as it neared the floor. The bright satins and soft-tinted silks – the Reine and Renaissance satins with the pearly tones of spring water; the light silks, Nile-green, Indian-azure, May-pink, and Danube-blue all of crystalline transparency – flowed forth above. Then came the stronger fabrics: warm-tinted Merveilleux satins, and Duchess silks, rolling in waves of increasing volume; whilst at the bottom, as in a fountain-basin, the heavy materials, the figured armures, the damasks, and brocades, the beaded silks and the silk embroidered with gold and silver, reposed amidst a deep bed of velvet of every sort – black, white, and coloured – with patterns stamped on silk and satin grounds, and spreading out with their medley of colours like a still lake in which reflections of sky and scenery were seemingly dancing. The women, pale with desire, bent over as if to look at themselves in a mirror. And before this gushing cataract they all remained hesitating between a secret fear of being carried away by such a flood of luxury, and an irresistible desire to jump in and be lost in it.

"Here you are, then!" said Madame Desforges, on finding Madame Bourdelais installed before a counter.

"Ah! good day!" replied the latter, shaking hands with the other ladies. "Yes, I've come to have a look."

"What a prodigious exhibition! It's like a dream. And the oriental saloon! Have you seen the oriental saloon?"

"Yes, yes; extraordinary!"

But beneath this enthusiasm, which was decidedly to be the fashionable note of the day, Madame Bourdelais retained her practical housewifely coolness. She was carefully examining a piece of Paris Delight, for she had come on purpose to profit by the exceptional cheapness of this silk, if she found it really advantageous. She was doubtless satisfied with it, for she bought five-and-twenty yards, hoping that this quantity would prove sufficient to make a dress for herself and a cloak for her little girl.

"What! you are going already?" resumed Madame Desforges. "Take a walk round with us."

"No, thanks; they are waiting for me at home. I didn't like to risk bringing the children into this crowd."

Thereupon she went away, preceded by the salesman carrying the twenty-five yards of silk, who led her to pay-desk No. 10, where young Albert was getting confused by all the demands for invoices with which he was besieged. When the salesman was able to approach, after having inscribed his sale on a debit-note, he called out the item, which the cashier entered in a register; then it was checked, and the leaf torn out of the salesman's debit book was stuck on a file near the receipting stamp.

"One hundred and forty francs," said Albert.

Madame Bourdelais paid and gave her address, for having come on foot she did not wish to be troubled with a parcel. Joseph had already received the silk behind the pay-desk, and was tying it up; and then the parcel, thrown into a basket on wheels, was sent down to the delivery department, which seemed to swallow up all the goods in the shop with a sluice-like roar.

Meanwhile, the block was becoming so great in the silk department that Madame Desforges and Madame Marty could not find a salesman disengaged. So they remained standing, mingling with the crowd of ladies who were looking at the silks and feeling them, staying there for hours without making up their minds. However the Paris Delight proved the great success; around it pressed one of those crowds whose feverish infatuation decrees a fashion in a day. A host of shopmen were engaged in measuring off this silk; above the customers' heads you could see the pale glimmer of the unfolded pieces, as the fingers of the employees came and went along the oak yard measures hanging from brass rods; and you could hear the noise of scissors swiftly cutting the silk, as fast as it was unwound, as if indeed there were not shopmen enough to suffice for all the greedy outstretched hands of the purchasers.

"It really isn't bad for five francs sixty centimes," said Madame Desforges, who had succeeded in getting hold of a piece at the edge of the table.

Madame Marty and her daughter experienced some disappointment, however. The newspapers had said so much about this silk, that they had expected something stronger and more brilliant. However, Bouthemont had just recognised Madame Desforges, and anxious to pay his court to such a handsome lady, who was supposed to be all-powerful with the governor, he came forward, with rather coarse amiability. What! no one was serving her! it was unpardonable! He begged her to be indulgent, for really they did not know which way to turn. And then he began to look for some chairs amongst the neighbouring skirts, laughing the while with his good-natured laugh, full of a brutal love for the sex, which did not seem to displease Henriette.

"I say," murmured Favier, as he went to take some velvet from a shelf behind Hutin, "there's Bouthemont making up to your mash."

Beside himself with rage with an old lady, who, after keeping him a quarter of an hour, had finished by buying a yard of black satin for a pair of stays, Hutin had quite forgotten Madame Desforges. In busy moments they took no notice of the turns, each salesman served the customers as they arrived. And he was answering Madame Boutarel, who was finishing her afternoon at The Ladies' Paradise, where she had already spent three hours in the morning, when Favier's warning made him start. What! was he going to miss the governor's sweetheart, from whom he had sworn to extract a five-franc piece for himself? That would be the height of ill-luck, for he hadn't made three francs as yet with all those other chignons who were mooning about the place!

Bouthemont was just then calling out loudly: "Come gentlemen, some one this way!"

Thereupon Hutin passed Madame Boutarel over to Robineau, who was doing nothing. "Here's the second-hand, madame. He will answer you better than I can."

And he rushed off to take Madame Marty's purchases from the woollen salesman who had accompanied the ladies. That day a nervous excitement must have interfered with his usually keen scent. As a rule, the first glance told him if a customer meant to buy, and how much. Then he domineered over the customer, hastened to serve her so as to pass on to another, imposing his choice upon her and persuading her that he knew better than herself what material she required.

"What sort of silk, madame?" he asked, in his most gallant manner and Madame Desforges had no sooner opened her mouth than he added: "I know, I've got just what you want."

When the piece of Paris Delight was unfolded on a corner of the counter, between heaps of other silks, Madame Marty and her daughter approached. Hutin, rather anxious, understood that it was at first a question of serving these two. Whispered words were exchanged, Madame Desforges was advising her friend. "Oh! certainly," she murmured. "A silk at five francs twelve sous will never equal one at fifteen, or even ten."

"It is very light," repeated Madame Marty. "I'm afraid that it has not sufficient body for a mantle."

This remark induced the salesman to intervene. He smiled with the exaggerated politeness of a man who cannot make a mistake. "But flexibility, madame, is the chief quality of this silk. It will not crimple. It's exactly what you require."