The Ladies' Paradise

The second-hand, who was making a great fuss over this work, as if he wished to attract the governor's attention and foresaw the result, replied with an innocent, astonished air: "Why, Monsieur Hutin told me, sir."

"Monsieur Hutin! Where is Monsieur Hutin?"

And when the latter came up from the receiving department where a salesman had been sent to fetch him, an animated explanation ensued. What! he undertook to lower the prices of his own accord now! What did that mean? But in his turn he appeared greatly astonished, having merely talked the matter over with Favier, without giving any positive orders. The latter then assumed the sorrowful air of an employee who finds himself obliged to contradict his superior. Yet he was quite willing to accept the blame, if it would get the latter out of a scrape. Things began to look very bad.

"Understand, Monsieur Hutin!" cried Mouret, "I have never tolerated these attempts at independence. We alone decide about the prices."

He went on speaking in a sharp voice, and with wounding intentions, which surprised the salesmen, for as a rule these discussions were carried on quietly, and the affair might really have been the result of a misunderstanding. One could divine, however, that he had some unavowed spite to satisfy. He had at last caught that Hutin in fault, that Hutin who was said to be Denise's sweetheart. He could now relieve himself, by making the other feel that he, Mouret, was the master! And he exaggerated matters, even insinuating that this reduction of price appeared to conceal very questionable intentions.

"Sir," repeated Hutin, "I meant to consult you about it. It is really necessary, as you know, for there has been no demand for these velvets."

Mouret cut him short with a final harsh remark. "Very good, sir; we will look into the matter. But don't do such a thing again, if you value your situation."

And then he walked off. Hutin, bewildered, furious, finding no one but Favier to confide in, swore that he would go and throw his resignation at the brute's head. But he soon left off talking of leaving, and began to stir up all the abominable accusations which were current amongst the salesmen against their chiefs. And Favier, his eyes sparkling, defended himself with a great show of sympathy. He was obliged to reply, wasn't he? Besides, could any one have foreseen such a row over so trifling a matter? What had come on the governor lately, that he should be so unbearable?

"We all know what's the matter with him," replied Hutin. "Is it my fault if that little jade in the mantle department is turning his head? My dear follow, you can see that the blow comes from there. He's aware that she fancied me, and he doesn't like it; or perhaps it's she herself who wants to get me dismissed because I'm in her way. But I swear she shall hear from me, if ever she crosses my path."

Two days later, as Hutin was going into the work-rooms upstairs, under the leads, to recommend a girl of his acquaintance, he started on perceiving Denise and Deloche leaning against a window at the end of a passage and plunged so deeply in private conversation that they did not even turn round. The idea of having them caught there suddenly occurred to him, when he perceived with astonishment that Deloche was weeping. He at once went off without making any noise; and meeting Bourdoncle and Jouve on the stairs, told them some story about one of the fire-extinguishers, the door of which seemed to have been torn away; in this manner they would go upstairs and drop on to the two others. Bourdoncle discovered them first. He stopped short, and told Jouve to go and fetch the governor, whilst he remained there. The inspector had to obey, though greatly annoyed at being forced to mix himself up in such a matter.

This was a lost corner of the vast world where the people of The Ladies' Paradise bestirred themselves. You reached it by an intricate network of stairs and passages. The work-rooms, situated in the attics, were low sloping chambers, lighted by large windows cut in the zinc roofing, and furnished solely with long tables and large cast-iron stoves; and all along was a crowd of work-girls engaged on the under-clothing, the lace, the upholstery and the dressmaking, and living winter and summer in a stifling heat, amidst the odour peculiar to the business. You had to skirt all these rooms, and turn to the right after passing the dressmakers, before coming to the solitary end of the corridor. The few customers, whom a salesman occasionally brought here for an order, gasped for breath, tired out and frightened, with the sensation of having turned round and round for hours, and of being a hundred leagues above the street.

Denise had often found Deloche waiting for her. As second-hand she had charge of the arrangements between her department and the work-room where only the models and alterations were attended to, and was always going up and down to give the necessary orders. The young man would watch for her and invent any pretext to run after her; and then affected to be surprised when he met her at the work-room door. She got to laugh about the matter and it became quite an understood thing. The corridor ran alongside one of the cisterns, an enormous iron tank containing twelve thousand gallons of water; and on the roof there was another one of equal size, reached by an iron ladder. For an instant, Deloche would stand talking, leaning one shoulder against the cistern in the continual abandonment of his long body, bent by fatigue. A sing-song noise of water was heard, a mysterious noise, the musical vibration of which the iron tank ever retained. Despite the solitude, Denise would at times turn round anxiously, thinking, she had seen a shadow pass on the bare, pale yellow walls. But the window would soon attract them, they would lean against it, and forget themselves in a pleasant gossip, in endless souvenirs of their native place. Below them extended the immense glass roof of the central gallery, a lake of glass bounded by the distant housetops, as by a rocky coast. Beyond, they saw nothing but the sky, a sheet of sky, which cast in the sleeping water of the glass work a reflection of the flight of its clouds and its soft azure.

It so happened that Deloche was that day speaking of Valognes. "I was six years old; my mother used to take me to Valognes market in a cart," he said. "You know it's ten miles away; we had to leave Briquebec at five o'clock. It's a fine country down our way. Do you know it?"

"Yes, yes," replied Denise, slowly, her glances wandering far away. "I was there once, but was very little then. Roads with grass on each side, eh? and now and again sheep browsing in couples, dragging their clog along by the rope." She stopped, then resumed with a vague smile: "Our roads run for miles as straight as arrows between rows of trees which afford some shade. We have meadows surrounded by hedges taller than I am, where there are horses and cows grazing. We have a little river too, and the water is very cold, under the brushwood, in a spot I well know."

"It is the same with us, exactly!" cried Deloche, delighted.

"There's grass everywhere, each one encloses his plot with thorns and elms, and is at once at home; and it's quite green, a green far different to what we see in Paris. Dear me! how I've played in the hollow road, on the left, coming down from the mill!"

Their voices died away, they remained with their eyes fixed, lost on the sunny lake of the glass work. A mirage rose up before them from that blinding water, they beheld an endless succession of meadows, the Cotentin country steeped in the breath of the ocean, bathed in a luminous vapour, which blurred the horizon with the delicate grey of a water-colour. Below them, beneath the colossal iron framework, in the silk hall, was the roar of business, the trepidation of the machine at work; the entire house vibrated with the tramping of the crowd, the bustle of the salesmen, the life of the thirty thousand persons hurtling there; and they, carried away by their dreams, thought they could hear the wind passing over the grass and shaking the tall trees, as they detected this deep dull clamour with which the roofs were resounding.

"Ah! Mademoiselle Denise," stammered Deloche, "why aren't you kinder to me? I love you so much!" Tears had come into his eyes, and as she signed to him to stop, he continued quickly: "No – let me tell you these things once more. We should get on so well together! People always find something to talk about when they come from the same part."

He was choking, and she was at last able to say kindly: "You're not reasonable; you promised me never to speak of that again. It's impossible. I have great friendship for you, because you're a nice fellow; but I wish to remain free."

"Yes, yes. I know," he replied in a broken voice, "you don't love me. Oh! you may say so, I quite understand it. There's nothing in me to make you love me. Listen, I've only had one sweet moment in my life, and that was when I met you at Joinville, do you remember? For a moment, under the trees, when it was so dark, I thought your arm trembled, and was stupid enough to imagine – "

But she again interrupted him. Her quick ear had just detected the sound of Bourdoncle's and Jouve's steps at the end of the corridor.

"Hark, there's some one coming."

"No," said he, preventing her from leaving the window, "it's in the cistern: all sorts of extraordinary noises come from it, as if there were some one inside."

And then he continued his timid caressing complaints. She was no longer listening to him, however. Rocked into a dreamy mood by his declaration of love, her eyes wandering over the roofs of The Ladies' Paradise. To the right and the left of the large glazed gallery, other galleries and other halls were glistening in the sunshine, between the housetops, pierced with garret windows and running along symmetrically, like the wings of a barracks. Metal ladders and bridges rose on all sides, describing a lacework of iron in the air; whilst the kitchen chimney belched forth as much smoke as a factory, and the great square cistern, supported aloft by cast-iron pillars, assumed the strange silhouette of some barbarous structure erected at this height by the pride of one man. In the distance, Paris roared.

When Denise awoke from this dreamy contemplation of space and the summits of The Ladies' Paradise, where her thoughts floated as in a vast solitude, she found that Deloche had caught hold of her hand. And as he appeared so woe-begone she did not draw it away.

"Forgive me," he murmured. "It's all over now; I should be too miserable if you punished me by withdrawing your friendship. I assure you I intended to say something else. Yes, I had determined to understand the situation and be very good." Then his tears again began to flow and he tried to steady his voice. "For I know my lot in life. It is too late for my luck to turn. Beaten at home, beaten in Paris, beaten everywhere! I've now been here four years and am still the last in the department. So I wanted to tell you not to trouble on my account. I won't annoy you any more. Try to be happy, love some one else; yes, that would really be a pleasure for me. If you are happy, I shall be happy too. That will be my happiness."

He could say no more. As if to seal his promise he raised the young girl's hand to his lips – kissing it with the humble kiss of a slave. She was deeply affected, and said simply, in a tender, sisterly tone, which softened somewhat the pity of the words: "My poor lad!"

But they started, and turned round; Mouret was standing before them.

For the last ten minutes, Jouve had been searching all over the place for the governor; the latter, however, was looking at the building of the new façade in the Rue du Dix-Décembre. He spent long hours there every day, trying to interest himself in this work, of which he had so long dreamed. There, amidst masons laying the huge corner-stones, and engineers setting up the great iron framework, he found a refuge against his torments. The façade already appeared above the level of the street; and indications of the spacious porch, and the windows of the first storey, a palace-like development in a crude state could be seen. Mouret scaled the ladders, discussing with the architect the ornamentation which was to be something quite new, scrambled over the heaps of brick and iron, and even went down into the cellars; and the roar of the steam-engine, the tic-tac of the trowels, the loud noise of the hammers and the clamour of the army of workmen in this immense cage surrounded by sound-reëchoing planks, really diverted him for an instant. He would come out white with plaster, black with iron-filings, his feet splashed by the water from the pumps but nevertheless so far from being cured that his anguish returned and his heart beat more loudly than ever, as the uproar of the works died away behind him. It so happened, on the day in question, that a slight diversion had brought back his gaiety: he had become deeply interested in an album of drawings of the mosaics and enamelled terra-cotta which were to decorate the friezes, when Jouve, out of breath, annoyed at being obliged to soil his frock coat amongst all the building materials came up to fetch him. At first Mouret cried out that they must wait; but, at a word spoken in an undertone by the inspector, he immediately followed him, trembling and again mastered by his passion. Nothing else existed, the façade crumbled away before being built: what was the use of that supreme triumph of his pride, if the mere name of a woman whispered in his ear tortured him to this extent!

Upstairs, Bourdoncle and Jouve thought it prudent to vanish. Deloche had hastened away; Denise, paler than usual, alone remained face to face with Mouret, looking straight into his eyes.

"Have the goodness to follow me, mademoiselle," he said in a harsh voice.

She followed him, they descended the two storeys, and crossed the furniture and carpet departments without saying a word. When he arrived at his office, he opened the door wide, saying, "Walk in, mademoiselle."

And, closing the door, he went to his table. The director's new office was fitted up more luxuriously than the old one; the rep hangings had been replaced by velvet ones, and a book-case, inlaid with ivory, occupied one whole side; but on the walls there was still no other picture than the portrait of Madame Hédouin, a young woman with a calm handsome face, smiling in a gilded frame.

"Mademoiselle," he said at last, trying to maintain a cold severe air, "there are certain things that we cannot tolerate. Good conduct is absolutely necessary here."

He stopped, choosing his words, in order not to yield to the furious anger which was rising within him. What! it was that fellow she loved, that wretched salesman, the laughing-stock of his counter! It was the humblest, the most awkward of all that she preferred to him, the master! for he had seen them, she leaving her hand in his, and he covering that hand with kisses.

"I've been very good to you, mademoiselle," continued he, making a fresh effort. "I little expected to be rewarded in this way."

Denise, immediately on entering, had been attracted by Madame Hédouin's portrait; and, notwithstanding her great trouble, was still pre-occupied by it. Every time she came into the director's office her eyes were sure to meet those of that painted lady. As a rule she was almost afraid of her, although she knew her to have been very good. This time, however, she felt her to be a kind of protection.

"You are right, sir," she said, softly, "I was wrong to stop and talk, and I beg your pardon for doing so. This young man comes from my own part of the country."

"I'll dismiss him!" cried Mouret, putting all his suffering into this furious cry.

And, completely overcome, entirely forgetting his position of director lecturing a saleswoman guilty of an infraction of the regulations, he broke into a torrent of violent words. Had she no shame in her? a young girl like her to fall in love with such a being! and he even made most atrocious accusations, introducing Hutin's name and the names of others into the affair, with such a flood of words, that she could not even defend herself. But he would make a clean sweep, and kick them all out! The explanation he had resolved on, when following Jouve, had degenerated into a violent scene of jealousy.

"Yes, your lovers! They told me about it, and I was stupid enough to doubt it. But I was the only one who did! I was the only one!"

Choking and bewildered, Denise stood listening to these frightful charges, which she had not at first understood. Did he really suppose her to be as bad as that? At another remark, harsher than all the rest, she silently turned towards the door. And, as he made a movement to stop her, she said:

"Let me alone, sir, I'm going away. If you think me what you say, I will not remain in the house another second."

But he rushed in front of the door, exclaiming: "Why don't you defend yourself? Say something!"

She stood there very stiff, maintaining an icy silence. For a long time he pressed her with questions, with a growing anxiety; and the mute dignity of this innocent girl once more seemed to be the artful calculation of a woman learned in all the tactics of passion. Had she desired it, which she did not, she could not have played a game better calculated to bring him to her feet, tortured by doubt, desirous of being convinced.

"Come, you say he is from your part of the country? Perhaps you've met there formerly. Swear that there has been nothing between you and this fellow."

And as she obstinately remained silent, as if still wishing to open the door and go away, he completely lost his head, and gave way to a supreme explosion of grief.

"Good heavens! I love you! I love you! Why do you delight in tormenting me like this? You can see that nothing else exists for me, that the people I speak about only touch me through you, that you alone can occupy my thoughts. Thinking you were jealous, I gave up all my pleasures. You were told I had mistresses; well! I have them no longer; I hardly set foot outside. Did I not prefer you at that lady's house? have I not quarrelled with her in order to belong solely to you? And I am still waiting for a word of thanks, a little gratitude. And if you fear that I should return to her, you may feel quite easy: she is avenging herself by helping one of our former salesmen to found a rival establishment. Tell me, must I go on my knees to touch your heart?"

He had come to this. He, who did not tolerate the slightest peccadillo among the shopwomen, who turned them out for the least caprice, found himself reduced to imploring one of them not to go away, not to abandon him in his misery! He held the door against her, ready to forgive her everything, to shut his eyes, if she merely deigned to lie. And he spoke the truth, he had quite reformed; he had long since given up Clara and had ceased to visit at Madame Desforges's house, where Bouthemont now reigned supreme, pending the opening of the new establishment, The Four Seasons, which was already filling the newspapers with its advertisements.

"Tell me, must I go on my knees?" he repeated, almost choked by suppressed tears.