The Ladies' Paradise

"This is it," he resumed, "you must attack their Paris Delight, which has been their success of the year. I have come to an understanding with several of my brother manufacturers at Lyons, and have brought you an exceptional offer – a black silk, a faille which you can sell at five francs fifty centimes a mêtre. They sell theirs at five francs sixty, don't they? Well! this will be two sous cheaper, and that will suffice to upset them."

At this Robineau's eyes lighted up again. In his continual nervous torment, he often skipped like this from despair to hope. "Have you got a sample?" he asked. And when Gaujean drew from his pocket-book a little square of silk, he went into raptures, exclaiming: "Why, this is a handsomer silk than the Paris Delight! At all events it produces a better effect, the grain is coarser. You are right, we must make the attempt. Ah! I'll bring them to my feet or give up for good!"

Madame Robineau, sharing the enthusiasm, declared the silk superb, and even Denise herself thought they might succeed. The latter part of the dinner thus proved very gay. They talked in a loud tone; it seemed as if The Ladies' Paradise was at its last gasp. Gaujean, who was finishing the pot of jam, explained what enormous sacrifices he and his colleagues would be obliged to make to deliver an article of such quality at so low a price; but they would ruin themselves rather than yield; they had sworn to kill the big shops. As the coffee came in the gaiety was still further increased by the arrival of Vinçard who called, on his way past, just to see how his successor was getting on.

"Famous!" he cried, feeling the silk. "You'll floor them, I stake my life! Ah! you owe me a rare good thing; I told you that this was a golden affair!"

He had just taken a restaurant at Vincennes. It was an old, cherished idea of his, slyly nurtured while he was struggling with his silk business, trembling with fear lest he should not sell it before the crash came, and vowing that he would afterwards put his money into some undertaking where he could rob folks at his ease. The idea of a restaurant had struck him at the wedding of a cousin, who had been made to pay ten francs for a tureen of dish water, in which floated some Italian paste. And, in presence of the Robineaus, the joy he felt at having saddled them with an unremunerative business, which he had despaired of getting rid of, made his face with its round eyes and large loyal-looking mouth, a face beaming with health, expand as it had never done before.

"And your pains?" asked Madame Robineau, good-naturedly.

"My pains?" he murmured, in astonishment.

"Yes, those rheumatic pains which tormented you so much when you were here."

He then recollected the fibs he had told and slightly coloured. "Oh! I suffer from them still!" said he. "But the country air, you know, has done me a deal of good. Never mind, on your side you've done a good stroke of business. Had it not been for my rheumatics, I could soon have retired with ten thousand francs a year. Yes, on my word of honour!"

A fortnight later, the battle between Robineau and The Ladies' Paradise began. It became celebrated, and for a time occupied the whole Parisian market. Robineau, using his adversary's weapons, had advertised extensively in the newspapers. Besides that, he made a fine display, piling huge bales of the famous silk in his windows and displaying immense white tickets, on which the price, five francs and a half per mêtre, appeared in gigantic figures. It was this price that caused a revolution among the women; it was two sous less than that charged at The Ladies' Paradise, and the silk appeared more substantial. From the first day a crowd of customers flocked in. Madame Marty bought a dress she did not need, pretending it to be a bargain; Madame Bourdelais also thought the silk very fine, but preferred waiting, guessing no doubt what would happen. And, indeed during the following week, Mouret boldly reduced the price of The Paris Delight by four sous, after a lively discussion with Bourdoncle and the other managers, in which he had succeeded in convincing them that they must accept the challenge, even at a sacrifice; for these four sous represented a dead loss, the silk being already sold at strict cost price. It was a heavy blow to Robineau, who had not imagined that his rival would lower his price; for this suicidal style of competition, this practice of selling at a loss, was then unknown. However, the tide of customers, attracted by Mouret's cheapness, had immediately flown back towards the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, whilst the shop in the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs gradually emptied.

Gaujean then hastened from Lyons; there were hurried confabulations, and they finished by coming to a heroic resolution; the silk should be lowered in price, they would sell it at five francs six sous, and lower than that no one could go, without acting madly. But the next day Mouret marked his material at five francs four sous. Then the struggle became rageful. Robineau replied by five francs three sous, whereupon Mouret at once ticketed The Paris Delight at five francs and two sous. Neither lowered more than a sou at a time now, for both lost considerable sums as often as they made this present to the public. The customers laughed, delighted with this duel, quite stirred by the terrible thrusts which the rivals dealt one another in order to please them. At last Mouret ventured as low as five francs; and his staff paled and shuddered at such a challenge to fortune. Robineau, utterly beaten, out of breath, also stopped at five francs, not having the courage to go any lower. And thus they rested on their positions, face to face, with the massacre of their goods around them.

But if honour was saved on both sides, the situation was becoming fatal for Robineau. The Ladies' Paradise had money at its disposal and a patronage which enabled it to balance its profits; whereas he, sustained by Gaujean alone, unable to recoup his losses by gaining on other articles, found himself nearing the end of his tether, slipping further and further down the slope toward bankruptcy. He was dying from his hardihood, despite the numerous customers whom the hazards of the struggle had brought him. One of his secret worries was to see these customers slowly quitting him, returning to The Ladies' Paradise, after all the money he had lost in the efforts he had made to secure them.

One day he quite lost patience. A customer, Madame de Boves, had called at his shop for some mantles, for he had added a ready-made department to his business. She would not come to a decision, however, but complained of the quality of the material, and at last exclaimed: "Their Paris Delight is a great deal stronger."

Robineau restrained himself, assuring her that she was mistaken with a tradesman's politeness, all the more respectful, moreover, as he feared to reveal his inward revolt.

"But just look at the silk of this cloak!" she resumed, "one would really take it for so much cobweb. You may say what you like, sir, but their silk at five francs is like leather compared with this."

He did not reply; with the blood rushing to his face, he kept his lips tightly closed. In point of fact he had ingeniously thought of buying some of his rival's silk for these mantles; so that it was Mouret, not he, who lost on the material. And to conceal his practice he simply cut off the selvage.

"Really," he murmured at last, "you think the Paris Delight thicker?"

"Oh! a hundred times!" said Madame de Boves. "There's no comparison."

This injustice on her part, this fixed determination to run down the goods in spite of all evidence filled him with indignation. And, as she was still turning the mantle over with a disgusted air, a little bit of the blue and silver selvage, which through carelessness had not been cut off, appeared under the lining. Thereupon he could not restrain himself any longer; but confessed the truth at all hazards.

"Well, madame, this is Paris Delight. I bought it myself! Look at the selvage."

Madame de Boves went away greatly annoyed, and a number of customers quitted him, for the affair became known. And he, amid this ruin, when fear for the future came upon him, only trembled for his wife, who had been brought up in a happy, peaceful home, and would never be able to endure a life of poverty. What would become of her if a catastrophe should throw them into the street, with a load of debts? It was his fault, he ought never to have touched her money. She was obliged to comfort him. Wasn't the money as much his as hers? He loved her dearly, and she wanted nothing more; she gave him everything, her heart and her life. They could be heard embracing one another in the back shop. Then, little by little, the affairs of the house got into a regular groove; each month the losses increased, but with a slowness which postponed the fatal issue. A tenacious hope sustained them, and they still predicted the approaching discomfiture of The Ladies' Paradise.

"Pooh!" he would say, "we are young yet. The future is ours."

"And besides, what matters, if you have done what you wanted to do?" she resumed. "As long as you are satisfied, I am as well, darling."

Denise's affection for them increased on seeing their tenderness. She trembled, divining their inevitable fall; however, she dared not interfere. And it was here that she ended by fully understanding the power of the new system of business, and became impassioned for this force which was transforming Paris. Her ideas were ripening, a woman's grace was being evolved from the wildness of a child freshly arrived from Valognes. Her life too was a pretty pleasant one, notwithstanding its fatigue and the little money she earned. When she had spent all the day on her feet, she had to go straight home, and look after Pépé, whom old Bourras fortunately insisted on feeding; but there was still a lot to do; a shirt to wash, a blouse to mend; without mentioning the noise made by the youngster, which made her head ache fit to split. She never went to bed before midnight. Sunday was her hardest day: for she then cleaned her room, and mended her own things, so busy that it was often five o'clock before she could comb her hair. However, she sometimes went out for health's sake, taking the little one for a long walk, out towards Neuilly; and their treat over there was to drink a cup of milk at a dairyman's, who allowed them to sit down in his yard. Jean disdained these excursions; he put in an appearance now and again on week-day evenings and then disappeared, pretending he had other visits to pay. He asked for no more money, but he arrived with such a melancholy countenance, that his anxious sister always managed to keep a five-franc piece for him. That was her sole luxury.

"Five francs!" he would exclaim each time. "My stars! you're too good! It just happens, there's the – "

"Not another word," Denise would say; "I don't want to know."

Three months passed away, spring was coming back. However Denise refused to return to Joinville with Pauline and Baugé. She sometimes met them in the Rue Saint-Roch, on leaving the shop in the evening. Pauline, on one occasion when she was alone, confided to her that she was perhaps 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 and she did not dare to advise her friend. Then one day, just as Colomban had stopped her near the fountain to talk about Clara, the latter tripped across 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 anybody.

"You've heard the news?" the umbrella dealer said to her one evening on her return 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 underhand affair," he resumed. "But it seems that the hotel belonged to the Crédit Immobilier, whose president, Baron Hartmann, has just sold it to our famous Mouret. And now they've got me on the right, on the left, and at the back, just in the way that I'm holding the knob of this stick in my hand!"

It was true, the sale must have been concluded on the previous day. Bourras's small house, hemmed in between The Ladies' Paradise and the Hôtel Duvillard, clinging there like a swallow's nest in a crack of a wall, seemed certain to be crushed, as soon as the shop galleries should invade the hôtel. And the time had now arrived, the colossus had outflanked the feeble obstacle, and was investing it with its piles of goods, threatening to swallow it up, absorb it by the sole force of its giant aspiratory powers. Bourras could well feel the close 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 off into kingdom come with his sticks and umbrellas, so loudly was the terrible machine now roaring.

"Do you hear them?" he asked. "One would think they were eating the very walls! And in my cellar and in the attic, everywhere, there's the same noise – like that of a saw cutting through the plaster. But never mind! They won't flatten me as easily as they might a sheet of paper. I shall stick here, even if they blow up my roof, and the rain falls 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 of their offer, they would give him fifty thousand francs for his good-will and the remainder of his lease. But this offer redoubled the old man's anger; he refused in an insulting manner. How those scoundrels must rob people to be able to pay fifty thousand francs for a thing which wasn't worth ten thousand! And he defended his shop as a young girl defends her virtue, for honour's sake.

Denise noticed that 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. Customers, who had often reproached him for the darkness of his shop, would certainly come back to it again, when they saw it all 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. Moreover, the whole neighbourhood was revolutionized by it all, people came to look at him losing his head amid all these riches, and no longer able to find the things he was accustomed to. He did not seem to be at home in that bright frame, that tender setting; he looked quite scared, with his long beard and white hair. On the opposite side of the street passers-by lingered in astonishment at seeing him waving his arms about while he carved his handles. And he was in a state of fever, perpetually afraid of dirtying his shop, more and more at sea amidst this luxury which he did not at all understand.

Meantime, as at Robineau's, so at Bourras's was the campaign against The Ladies' Paradise carried on. Bourras 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 began. Bourras had an article at one franc and nineteen sous, in zanella, with a steel mounting, an everlasting article said the ticket. But he was especially anxious to vanquish his competitors with his handles of bamboo, dogwood, olive, myrtle, rattan, indeed every imaginable sort of handle. The Paradise people, less artistic, paid more attention to the material, extolling their alpacas and mohairs, 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 the pleasure of doing so, without any hope of selling them.

"It's my fault!" he cried 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 those brigands; so much the better if I'm ruined by it!"

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

"Ah, it's you, mademoiselle!" he said.

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?" he inquired.

"Yes, sir," said she at last.

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

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

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

"Yes, sir," she replied once more; and as she did so 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 apologize to you. Yes, I should have been happy to have told you sooner how much I regret the error that was made. You were accused too lightly of a fault. However, the evil is done. I simply wanted to assure you that every one in our establishment now knows of your affection for your brothers." Then he went on speaking with a respectful politeness to which the saleswomen of The Ladies' Paradise were little accustomed. Denise's confusion had increased; but her heart was full of joy. He knew, then, that she had ever remained virtuous! Both remained silent; he still lingered beside her, regulating his walk to the child's short steps; and the distant murmurs of the city died away under the black shadows of the spreading chestnut-trees. "I have only one reparation to offer you," he resumed. "Naturally, if you would like to come back to us – "

But she interrupted him, refusing his offer 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, putting himself on a footing of amiable equality, he spoke of the latter, rendering him full justice. He was a very intelligent fellow, no doubt, but too nervous. He would certainly come to grief: Gaujean had burdened him with a very heavy business, in which they would both suffer. Thereupon Denise, subjugated by this familiarity, opened her mind further, and allowed it to be seen that she was on the side of the big shops in the war between them and the small traders. She grew animated, citing examples, showing herself well up in the question and even expressing new and enlightened ideas. He, quite charmed, listened to her in surprise; and turned round, trying to distinguish her features in the growing darkness. She appeared to be still the same with her simple dress and sweet face; but from amidst her modest bashfulness, there seemed to ascend a penetrating perfume, of which he felt the powerful influence. Doubtless this little girl had got used to the atmosphere of Paris, she was becoming quite a woman, and was really perturbing, with her sound common-sense and her beautiful sweet-scented hair.

"As you are on our side," said he, laughing, "why do you stay with our adversaries? I was told too that you lodged with Bourras."

"A very worthy man," she murmured. "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 realizing that the young girl was confused, he hastened to add: "Oh! one can be respectable anywhere, and there's even more merit in remaining so when one is so poor."

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