The Ladies' Paradise

And returning to the middle of the shop, he asked: “What can I do for you, Monsieur Baudu?”

The draper, who had been listening with one ear, introduced Denise, told him as much as he thought necessary of her story, adding that she had two years’ country experience.

“And as I have heard you are wanting a good saleswoman – ”

Vinçard affected to be awfully sorry. “What an unfortunate thing!” said he. “I have, indeed, been looking for a saleswoman all the week; but I’ve just engaged one – not two hours ago.”

A silence ensued. Denise seemed disheartened. Robineau, who was looking at her with interest, probably inspired with pity by her poor appearance, ventured to say:

“I know they’re wanting a young person at our place, in the ready-made dress department.”

Baudu could not help crying out fervently: “At your place? Never!”

Then he stopped, embarrassed. Denise had turned very red; she would never dare enter that great place, and yet the idea of being there filled her with pride.

“Why not?” asked Robineau, surprised. “It would be a good opening for the young lady. I advise her to go and see Madame. Aurélie, the first-hand, to-morrow. The worst that can happen to her is not to be accepted.”

The draper, to conceal his inward revolt, began to talk vaguely. He knew Madame Aurélie, or, at least, her husband, Lhomme, the cashier, a stout man, who had had his right arm severed by an omnibus. Then turning suddenly to Denise, he added: “However, that’s her business. She can do as she likes.”

And he went out, after having said “good-day” to Gaujean and Robineau. Vinçard went with him as far as the door, reiterating his regrets. The young girl had remained in the middle of the shop, intimidated, desirous of asking Robineau for further particulars. But not daring to, she in her turn bowed, and simply said: “Thank you, sir.”

On the way back Baudu said nothing to his niece, but walked very fast, forcing her to run to keep up with him, as if carried away by his reflections. Arrived in the Rue de la Michodière, he was going into his shop, when a neighbouring shopkeeper, standing at his door, called him.

Denise stopped and waited.

“What is it, old Bourras?” asked the draper.

Bourras was a tall old man, with a prophet’s head, bearded and hairy, and piercing eyes under thick and bushy eyebrows. He kept an umbrella and walking-stick shop, did repairs, and even carved handles, which had won for him an artistic celebrity in the neighbourhood. Denise glanced at the shop-window, where the umbrellas and sticks were arranged in straight lines. But on raising her eyes she was astonished at the appearance of the house, a hovel squeezed between The Ladies’ Paradise and a large building of the Louis XIV. style, sprung up one hardly knew how, in this narrow space, crushed by its two low storeys. Had it not been for the support on each side it must have fallen; the slates were old and rotten, and the two-windowed front was cracked and covered with stains, which ran down in long rusty lines over the worm-eaten sign-board.

“You know he’s written to my landlord, offering to buy the house?” said Bourras, looking steadily at the draper with his fiery eyes.

Baudu became paler still, and bent his shoulders. There was a silence, during which the two men remained face to face, looking very serious.

“Must be prepared for anything now,” murmured Baudu at last.

Bourras then got angry, shaking his hair and flowing board. “Let him buy the house, he’ll have to pay four times the value for it! But I swear that as long as I live he shall not touch a stone of it. My lease has twelve years to run yet. We shall see! we shall see!”

It was a declaration of war. Bourras looked towards The Ladies’ Paradise, which neither had directly named. Baudu shook his head in silence, and then crossed the street to his shop, his legs almost failing under him. “Ah! good Lord! ah! good Lord!” he kept repeating.

Denise, who had heard all, followed her uncle. Madame Baudu had just come back with Pépé, whom Madame Gras had agreed to receive at anytime. But Jean had disappeared, and this made his sister anxious. When he returned with a flushed face, talking in an animated way of the boulevards, she looked at him with such a sad expression that he blushed with shame. The box had arrived, and it was arranged that they should sleep in the attic.

“How did you get on at Vinçard’s?” asked Madame Baudu, suddenly.

The draper related his useless errand, adding that Denise had heard of a situation; and, pointing to The Ladies’ Paradise with a scornful gesture, he cried out: “There – in there!”

The whole family felt wounded at the idea. The first dinner was at five o’clock. Denise and the two children took their places, with Baudu, Geneviève, and Colomban. A single jet of gas lighted and warmed the little dining-room, reeking with the smell of hot food. The meal passed off in silence, but at dessert Madame Baudu, who could not rest anywhere, left the shop, and came and sat down near Denise. And then the storm, kept back all day, broke out, every one feeling a certain relief in abusing the monster.

“It’s your business, you can do as you like,” repeated Baudu. “We don’t want to influence you. But if you only knew what sort of place it is – ” And he commenced to relate, in broken sentences, the history of this Octave Mouret. Wonderful luck! A fellow who had come up from the South of France with the amiable audacity of an adventurer; no sooner arrived than he commenced to distinguish himself by all sorts of disgraceful pranks with the ladies; had figured in an affair, which was still the talk of the neighbourhood; and to crown all, had suddenly and mysteriously made the conquest of Madame Hédouin, who brought him The Ladies’ Paradise as a marriage portion.

“Poor Caroline!” interrupted Madame Baudu. “We were distantly related. If she had lived things would be different. She wouldn’t have let them ruin us like this. And he’s the man who killed her. Yes, that very building! One morning, when visiting the works, she fell down a hole, and three days after she died. A fine, strong, healthy woman, who had never known what illness was! There’s some of her blood in the foundation of that house.”

She pointed to the establishment opposite with her pale and trembling hand. Denise, listening as to a fairy tale, slightly shuddered; the sense of fear which had mingled with the temptation she had felt since the morning, was caused perhaps by the presence of this woman’s blood, which she fancied she could see in the red mortar of the basement.

“It seems as if it brought him good luck,” added Madame Baudu, without mentioning Mouret by name.

But the draper shrugged his shoulders, disdaining these old women’s tales, and resumed his story, explaining the situation commercially. The Ladies’ Paradise was founded in 1822 by two brothers, named Deleuze. On the death of the elder, his daughter, Caroline, married the son of a linen manufacturer, Charles Hédouin; and, later on, becoming a widow, she married Mouret. She thus brought him a half share of the business. Three months after the marriage, the second brother Deleuze died childless; so that when Caroline met her death, Mouret became sole heir, sole proprietor of The Ladies’ Paradise. Wonderful luck!

“A sharp fellow, a dangerous busybody, who will overthrow the whole neighborhood if allowed to!” continued Baudu. “I fancy that Caroline, a rather romantic woman, must have been carried away by the gentleman’s extravagant ideas. In short, he persuaded her to buy the house on the left, then the one on the right; and he himself, on becoming his own master, bought two others; so that the establishment has continued to grow – extending in such a way that it now threatens to swallow us all up!”

He was addressing Denise, but was really speaking more to himself, feeling a feverish longing to go over this history which haunted him continually. At home he was always angry, always violent, clenching his fists as if longing to go for somebody. Madame Baudu ceased to interfere, sitting motionless on her chair; Genevieve and Colomban, their eyes cast down, were picking up and eating the crumbs off the table, just for the sake of something to do. It was so warm, so stuffy in the small room, that Pépé was sleeping with his head on the table, and even Jean’s eyes were closing.

“Wait a bit!” resumed Baudu, seized with a sudden fit of anger, “such jokers always go to smash! Mouret is hard-pushed just now; I know that for a fact. He’s been forced to spend all his savings on his mania for extensions and advertisements. Moreover, in order to raise money, he has induced most of his shop-people to invest all they possess with him. So that he hasn’t a sou to help himself with now; and, unless a miracle be worked, and he treble his sales, as he hopes to do, you’ll see what a crash there’ll be! Ah! I’m not ill-natured, but that day I’ll illuminate my shop-front, on my word of honour!”

And he went on in a revengeful voice; one would have thought that the fall of The Ladies’ Paradise was to restore the dignity and prestige of compromised business. Had any one ever seen such a thing? A draper’s shop selling everything! Why not call it a bazaar at once? And the employees! a nice set they were too – a lot of puppies, who did their work like porters at a railway station, treating goods and customers like so many parcels; leaving the shop or getting the sack at a moment’s notice. No affection, no manners, no taste! And all at once he quoted Colomban as an example of a good tradesman, brought up in the old school, knowing how long it took to learn all the cunning and tricks of the trade. The art was not to sell a large quantity, but to sell dear. Colomban could say how he had been treated, carefully looked after, his washing and mending done, nursed in illness, considered as one of the family – loved, in fact!

“Of course,” repeated Colomban, after every statement the governor made.

“Ah, you’re the last of the old stock,” Baudu ended by declaring. “After you’re gone there’ll be none left. You are my sole consolation, for if they call all this sort of thing business I give up, I would rather clear out.”

Geneviève, her head on one side, as if her thick hair were too heavy for her pale forehead, was watching the smiling shopman; and in her look there was a suspicion, a wish to see whether Colomban, stricken with remorse, would not blush at all this praise. But, like a fellow up to every trick of the old trade, he preserved his quiet manner, his good-natured and cunning look. However, Baudu still went on, louder than ever, condemning the people opposite, calling them a pack of savages, murdering each other in their struggle for existence, destroying all family ties. And he mentioned some country neighbours, the Lhommes – mother, father, and son – all employed in the infernal shop, people without any home life, always out, leading a comfortless, savage existence, never dining at home except on Sunday, feeding all the week at restaurants, hotels, anywhere. Certainly his dining-room wasn’t too large nor too well-lighted; but it was part of their home, and the family had grown up affectionately about the domestic hearth. Whilst speaking his eyes wandered about the room; and he shuddered at the unavowed idea that the savages might one day, if they, succeeded in ruining his trade, turn him out of this house where he was so comfortable with his wife and child. Notwithstanding the assurance with which he predicted the utter downfall of his rivals, he was really terrified, feeling that the neighbourhood was being gradually invaded and devoured.

“I don’t want to disgust you,” resumed he, trying to calm himself; “if you think it to your interest to go there, I shall be the first to say, ‘go.’”

“I am sure of that, uncle,” murmured Denise, bewildered, all this excitement rendering her more and more desirous of entering The Ladies’ Paradise.

He had put his elbows on the table, and was staring at her so hard that she felt uneasy. “But look here,” resumed he; “you who know the business, do you think it right that a simple draper’s shop should sell everything? Formerly, when trade was trade, drapers sold nothing but drapery. Now they are doing their best to snap up every branch and ruin their neighbours. The whole neighbourhood complains of it, for every small tradesman is beginning to suffer terribly. This Mouret is ruining them. Bédoré and his sister, who keep the hosiery shop in the Rue Gaillon, have already lost half their customers; Mademoiselle Tatin, at the under-linen warehouse in the Passage Choiseul, has been obliged to lower her prices, to be able to sell at all. And the effects of this scourge, this pest, are felt as far as the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, where I hear that Vanpouille Brothers, the furriers, cannot hold out much longer. Drapers selling fur goods – what a farce! another of Mouret’s ideas!”

“And gloves,” added Madame Baudu; “isn’t it monstrous? He has even dared to add a glove department! Yesterday, as I was going along the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, I saw Quinette, the glover, at his door, looking so downcast that I hadn’t the heart to ask him how business was going.”

“And umbrellas,” resumed Baudu; “that’s the climax! Bourras feels sure that Mouret simply wants to ruin him; for, in short, where’s the rhyme between umbrellas and drapery? But Bourras is firm on his legs, and won’t allow himself to be beggared. We shall see some fun one of these days.”

He spoke of other tradesmen, passing the whole neigbour-hood in review. Now and again he let slip a confession. If Vinçard wanted to sell it was time for the rest to pack up, for Vinçard was like the rats who leave a house when it threatens to fall in. Then, immediately after, he contradicted himself, alluded to an alliance, an understanding between the small tradesmen in order to fight the colossus. He hesitated an instant before speaking of himself, his hands shaking, and his mouth twitching in a nervous manner. At last he made up his mind.

“As for myself, I can’t complain as yet. Of course he has done me harm, the scoundrel! But up to the present he only keeps ladies’ cloths, light stuffs for dresses and heavier goods for mantles. People still come to me for men’s goods, velvets for shooting suits, cloths for liveries, without speaking of flannels and serges, of which I defy him to show as good an assortment. But he thinks to annoy me by planting his cloth department right in front of my door. You’ve seen his display, haven’t you? He always places his finest made-up goods there, surrounded by a framework of various cloths – a cheap-jack parade to tempt the women. Upon my word, I should be ashamed to use such means! The Old Elbeuf has been known for nearly a hundred years, and has no need for such at its door. As long as I live, it shall remain as I took it, with a few samples on each side, and nothing more!”

The whole family was affected. Geneviève ventured to make a remark after a silence:

“You know, papa, our customers know and like us. We mustn’t lose heart Madame Desforges and Madame de Boves have been to-day, and I am expecting Madame Marty for some flannel.”

“I,” declared Colomban, “I took an order from Madame Bourdelais yesterday. ’Tis true she spoke of an English cheviot marked up opposite ten sous cheaper than ours, and the same stuff, it appears.”

“Fancy,” murmured Madame Baudu in her weak voice, “we knew that house when it was scarcely larger than a handkerchief! Yes, my dear Denise, when the Deleuzes started it, it had only one window in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin; and such a tiny one, in which there was barely room for a couple of pieces of print and two or three pieces of calico. There was no room to turn round in the shop, it was so small. At that time The Old Elbeuf, after sixty years’ trading, was as you see it now. Ah! all that has greatly changed!”

She shook her head; the drama of her whole life was expressed in these few words. Born in the old house, she loved every part of it, living only for it and by it; and, formerly proud of this house, the finest, the best patronised in the neighbourhood, she had had the daily grief of seeing the rival establishment gradually growing in importance, at first disdained, then equal to theirs, and finally towering above it, and threatening all the rest. This was for her a continual, open sore; she was slowly dying from sheer grief at seeing The Old Elbeuf humiliated, though still living, as if by the force of impulse, like a machine wound up. But she felt that the death of the shop would be hers as well, and that she would never survive the closing of it.

There was a painful silence. Baudu was softly beating a tattoo with his fingers on the American cloth on the table. He experienced a sort of lassitude, almost a regret at having relieved his feelings once more in this way. In fact, the whole family felt the effects of his despondency, and could not help ruminating on the bitter story. They never had had any luck. The children had been educated and started in the world, fortune was beginning to smile on them, when suddenly this competition sprang up and ruined their hopes. There was, also, the house at Rambouillet, that country house to which he had been dreaming of retiring for the last ten years – a bargain, he thought; but it had turned out to be an old building always wanting repairs, and which he had let to people who never paid any rent. His last profits were swallowed up by the place – the only folly he had committed in his honest, upright career as a tradesman, obstinately attached to the old ways.

“Come, come!” said he, suddenly, “we must make room for the others. Enough of this useless talk!”