The Ladies' Paradise

“Let’s go up at once,” said Baudu, rising with a start. “Try and be cheerful, she mustn’t know.”

He himself rubbed his eyes to efface the trace of his tears. As soon as he had opened the door, on the first storey, they heard a frightened, feeble voice crying: “Oh, I don’t like to be left alone. Don’t leave me; I’m afraid to be left alone.” Then, when she perceived Denise, Geneviève became calmer, and smiled joyfully. “You’ve come, then! How I’ve been longing to see you since yesterday. I thought you also had abandoned me!”

It was a piteous sight. The young girl’s room looked out on to the yard, a little room lighted by a livid light At first her parents had put her in their own room, in the front; but the sight of The Ladies’ Paradise opposite affected her so much, that they had been obliged to bring her back to her own again. And there she lay, so very thin, under the bed-clothes, that one hardly suspected the form and existence of a human body. Her skinny arms, consumed by a burning fever, were in a perpetual movement of anxious, unconscious searching; whilst her black hair seemed thicker still, and to be eating up her poor face with its voracious vitality, that face in which was agonising the final degenerateness of a family sprung up in the shade, in this cellar of old commercial Paris. Denise, her heart bursting with pity, stood looking at her. She did not at first speak, for fear of giving way to tears. At last she murmured:

“I came at once. Can I be of any use to you? You asked for me. Would you like me to stay?”

“No, thanks. I don’t want anything. I only wanted to embrace you.”

Tears filled her eyes. Denise quickly leant over, and kissed her on both cheeks, trembling to feel on her lips the flame of those hollow cheeks. But Geneviève, stretching out her arms, seized and kept her in a desperate embrace. Then she looked towards her father.

“Would you like me to stay?” repeated Denise. “Perhaps there is something I can do for you.”

Geneviève’s glance was still obstinately fixed on her father, who remained standing, with a stolid air, almost choking. He at last understood, and went away, without saying a word; and they heard his heavy footstep on the stairs.

“Tell me, is he with that woman?” asked the sick girl immediately, seizing her cousin’s hand, and making her sit on the side of the bed. “I want to know, and you are the only one can tell me. They’re living together, aren’t they?” Denise, surprised by these questions, stammered, and was obliged to confess the truth, the rumours that were current in the shop. Clara, tired of this fellow, who was getting a nuisance to her, had already broken with him, and Colomban, desolated, was pursuing her everywhere, trying to obtain a meeting from time to time, with a sort of canine humility. They said that he was going to take a situation at the Grands Magasins du Louvre.

“If you still love him, he may return,” said Denise, to cheer the dying girl with this last hope. “Get well quick, he will acknowledge his errors, and marry you.”

Geneviève interrupted her. She had listened with all her soul, with an intense passion that raised her in the bed. But she fell back almost immediately. “No, I know it’s all over! I don’t say anything, because I see papa crying, and I don’t wish to make mamma worse than she is. But I am going, Denise, and if I called for you last night it was for fear of going off before the morning. And to think that he is not happy after all!”

And Denise having remonstrated, assuring her that she was not so bad as all that, she cut her short again, suddenly throwing off the bed-clothes with the chaste gesture of a virgin who has nothing to conceal in death. Naked to the waist, she murmured: “Look at me! Is it possible?”

Trembling, Denise quitted the side of the bed, as if she feared to destroy this fearful nudity with a breath. It was the last of the flesh, a bride’s body used up by waiting, returned to the first infantile slimness of her young days. Geneviève slowly covered herself up again, saying: “You see I am no longer a woman. It would be wrong to wish for him still!” There was a silence. Both continued to look at each other, unable to find a word to say. It was Geneviève who resumed: “Come, don’t stay any longer, you have your own affairs to look after. And thanks, I was tormented by the wish to know, and am now satisfied. If you see him, tell him I forgive him. Adieu, dear Denise. Kiss me once more, for it’s the last time.” The young girl kissed her, protesting: “No, no, don’t despair, all you want is loving care, nothing more.” But the sick girl, shaking her head in an obstinate way, smiled, quite sure of what she said. And as her cousin was making for the door, she exclaimed: “Wait a minute, knock with this stick, so that papa may come up. I’m afraid to stay alone.”

Then, when Baudu arrived in that small, gloomy room, where he spent hours seated on a chair, she assumed an air of gaiety, saying to Denise – “Don’t come to-morrow, I would rather not. But on Sunday I shall expect you; you can spend the afternoon with me.”

The next morning, at six o’clock, Geneviève expired after four hours’ fearful agony. The funeral took place on a Saturday, a fearfully black, gloomy day, under a sooty sky which hung over the shivering city. The Old Elbeuf, hung with white linen, lighted up the street with a bright spot, and the candles burning in the fading day seemed so many stars drowned in the twilight The coffin was covered with wreaths and bouquets of white roses; it was a narrow child’s coffin, placed in the obscure passage of the house on a level with the pavement, so near the gutter that the passing carriages had already splashed the coverings. The whole neighbourhood exhaled a dampness, a cellar-like mouldy odour, with its continual rush of pedestrians on the muddy pavement.

At nine o’clock Denise came over to stay with her aunt. But as the funeral was starting, the latter – who had ceased weeping, her eyes burnt with tears – begged her to follow the body and look after her uncle, whose mute affliction and almost idiotic grief filled the family with anxiety. Below, the young girl found the street full of people, for the small traders in the neighbourhood were anxious to show the Baudus a mark of sympathy, and in this eagerness there was also a sort of manifestation against The Ladies’ Paradise, whom they accused of causing Geneviève’s slow agony. All the victims of the monster were there – Bédoré and sister from the hosier’s shop in the Rue Gaillon, the furriers, Vanpouille Brothers, and Deslignières the toyman, and Piot and Rivoire the furniture dealers; even Mademoiselle Tatin from the underclothing shop, and the glover Quinette, long since cleared off by bankruptcy, had made it a duty to come, the one from Batignolle, the other from the Bastille, where they had been obliged to take situations. Whilst waiting for the hearse, which was late, these people, tramping about in the mud, cast glances of hatred towards The Ladies’ Paradise, the bright windows and gay displays of which seemed an insult in face of The Old Elbeuf, which, with its funeral trappings and glimmering candles, cast a gloom over the other side of the street A few curious faces appeared at the plate-glass windows; but the colossus maintained the indifference of a machine going at full speed, unconscious of the deaths it may cause on the road.

Denise looked round for her brother Jean, whom she at last perceived standing before Bourras’s shop, and she went and asked him to walk with his uncle, to assist him if he could not get along. For the last few weeks Jean had been very grave, as if tormented by some worry. To-day, buttoned up in his black frock-coat, a full grown man, earning his twenty francs a day, he seemed so dignified and so sad that his sister was surprised, for she had no idea he loved his cousin so much as that. Desirous of sparing Pépé this needless grief, she had left him with Madame Gras, intending to go and fetch him in the afternoon to see his uncle and aunt.

The hearse had still not arrived, and Denise, greatly affected, was watching the candles burn, when she was startled by a well-known voice behind her. It was Bourras. He had called the chestnut-seller opposite, in his little box, against the public-house, and said to him:

“I say, Vigouroux, just keep a look-out for me a bit, will you? You see I’ve closed the door. If any one comes tell them to call again. But don’t let that disturb you, no one will come.”

Then he took his stand on the pavement, waiting like the others. Denise, feeling rather awkward, glanced at his shop. He entirely abandoned it now; there was nothing left but a disorderly array of umbrellas eaten up by the damp air, and canes blackened by the gas. The embellishments that he had made, the delicate green paint work, the glasses, the gilded sign, were all cracking, already getting dirty, presenting that rapid and lamentable decrepitude of false luxury laid over ruins. But though the old crevices were re-appearing, though the spots of damp had sprung up over the gildings, the house still held its ground obstinately, hanging on to the flanks of The Ladies’ Paradise like a dishonouring wart, which, although cracked and rotten, refused to fall off.

“Ah! the scoundrels,” growled Bourras, “they won’t even let her be carried away.”

The hearse, which had at last arrived, had just got into collision with one of The Ladies’ Paradise vans, which was spinning along, shedding in the mist its starry radiance, with the rapid trot of two superb horses. And the old man cast on Denise an oblique glance, lighted up under his bushy eyebrows. Slowly, the funeral started off, splashing through the muddy pools, amid the silence of the omnibuses and carriages suddenly pulled up. When the coffin, draped with white, crossed the Place Gaillon, the sombre looks of the cortege were once more plunged into the windows of the big shop, where two saleswomen alone had run up to look on, pleased at this distraction. Baudu followed the hearse with a heavy mechanical step, refusing by a sign the arm offered by Jean, who was walking with him. Then, after a long-string of people, came three mourning coaches. As they passed the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, Robineau ran up to join the cortege, very pale, and looking much older.

At Saint-Roch, a great many women were waiting, the small traders of the neighbourhood, who had been afraid of the crowd at the house. The manifestation was developing into quite a riot; and when, after the service, the procession started off back, all the men followed, although it was a long walk from the Rue Saint-Honoré to the Montmartre Cemetery. They had to go up the Rue Saint-Roch, and once more pass The Ladies’ Paradise. It was a sort of obsession; this poor young girl’s body was paraded round the big shop like the first victim fallen in time of revolution. At the door some red flannels were flapping like so many flags, and a display of carpets blazed forth in a florescence of enormous roses and full-blown pæonies. Denise had got into one of the coaches, being agitated by some smarting doubts, her heart oppressed by such a feeling of grief that she had not the strength to walk At that moment there was a stop, in the Rue du Dix-Décembre, before the scaffolding of the new façade which still obstructed the thoroughfare. ‘And the young girl observed old Bourras, left behind, dragging along with difficulty, close to the wheels of the coach in which she was riding alone. He would never get as far as the cemetery, she thought. He raised his head, looked at her, and all at once got into the coach.

“It’s my confounded knees,” exclaimed he. “Don’t draw back! Is it you that we detest?”

She felt him to be friendly and furious as in former days. He grumbled, declared that Baudu must be fearfully strong to be able to keep up after such blows as he had received. The procession had resumed its slow pace; and on leaning out, Denise saw her uncle walking with his heavy step, which seemed to regulate the rumbling and painful march of the cortege. She then threw herself back into the corner, listening to the endless complaints of the old umbrella maker, rocked by the melancholy movement of the coach.

“The police ought to clear the public thoroughfare, my word! They’ve been blocking up our street for the last eighteen months with the scaffolding of their façade, where a man was killed the other day. Never mind! When they want to enlarge further they’ll have to throw bridges over the street. They say there are now two thousand seven hundred employees, and that the business will amount to a hundred millions this year. A hundred millions! Just fancy, a hundred millions!”

Denise had nothing to say in reply. The procession had just turned into the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, where it was stopped by a block of vehicles. Bourras went on, with a vague expression in his eyes, as if he were dreaming aloud. He still failed to understand the triumph achieved by The Ladies’ Paradise, but he acknowledged the defeat of the old-fashioned traders.

“Poor Robineau’s done for, he’s got the face of a drowning man. And the Bédorés and the Vanpouilles, they can’t keep going; they’re like me, played out Deslignières will die of apoplexy. Piot and Rivoire have the yellow jaundice. Ah! we’re a fine lot; a pretty cortege of skeletons to follow the poor child. It must be comical for those looking on to see this string of bankrupts pass. Besides, it appears that the clean sweep is to continue. The scoundrels are creating departments for flowers, bonnets, perfumery, shoemaking, all sorts of things. Grognet, the perfumer in the Rue de Grammont, can clear out, and I wouldn’t give ten francs for Naud’s shoe-shop in the Rue d’Antin. The cholera has spread as far as the Rue Sainte-Anne, where Lacassagne, at the feather and flower shop, and Madame Chadeuil, whose bonnets are so well-known, will be swept away before long. And after those, others; it will still go on! All the businesses in the neighbourhood will suffer. When counter-jumpers commence to sell soap and goloshes, they are quite capable of dealing in fried potatoes. My word, the world is turning upside down!”

The hearse was just then crossing the Place de la Trinité to ascend the steep Rue Blanche, and from the corner of the gloomy coach Denise, who, broken-hearted, was listening to the endless complaints of the old man, could see the coffin as they issued from the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin. Behind her uncle, marching along with the blind, mute face of an ox about to be poleaxed, she seemed to hear the tramping of a flock of sheep led to the slaughter-house, the discomfiture of the shops of a whole district, the small traders dragging along their ruin, with the thud of damp shoes, through the muddy streets of Paris. Bourras still went on, in a deeper voice, as if slackened by the difficult ascent of the Rue Blanche.

“As for me, I am settled. But I still hold on all the same, and won’t let go. He’s just lost his appeal case. Ah! that’s cost me something, what with nearly two years’ pleading, and the solicitors and the barristers! Never mind, he won’t pass under my shop, the judges have decided that such a work could not be considered as a legitimate case of repairing. Fancy, he talked of creating underneath a light saloon to judge the colours of the stuffs by gas-light, a subterranean room which would have united the hosiery to the drapery department! And he can’t get over it; he can’t swallow the fact that an old humbug like me should stop his progress when everybody are on their knees before his money. Never! I won’t! that’s understood. Very likely I may be worsted. Since I have had to go to the money-lenders, I know the villain is looking after my paper, in the hope to play me some villanous trick, no doubt. But that doesn’t matter. He says ‘yes,’ and I say ‘no,’ and shall still say ‘no,’ even when I get between two boards like this poor little girl who has just been nailed up.”

When they reached the Boulevard de Clichy, the coach went at a quicker pace; one could hear the heavy breathing of the mourners, the unconscious haste of the cortege, anxious to get the sad ceremony over. What Bourras did not openly mention, was the frightful misery into which he had fallen, bewildered amidst the confusion of the small trader who is on the road to ruin and yet remains obstinate, under a shower of protested bills. Denise, well acquainted with his situation, at last interrupted the silence by saying, in a voice of entreaty:

“Monsieur Bourras, pray don’t stand out any longer. Let me arrange matters for you.”

But he interrupted her with a violent gesture. “You be quiet. That’s nobody’s business. You’re a good little girl, and I know you lead him a hard life, this man who thought you were for sale like my house. But what would you answer if I advised you to say ‘yes?’ You’d send me about my business. Therefore, when I say ‘no,’ don’t you interfere in the matter.”

And the coach having stopped at the cemetery gate, he got out with the young girl. The Baudus’ vault was situated in the first alley on the left. In a few minutes the ceremony was terminated. Jean had drawn away his uncle, who was looking into the grave with a gaping air. The mourners wandered about amongst the neighbouring tombs, and the faces of all these shopkeepers, their blood impoverished by living in their unhealthy shops assumed an ugly suffering look under the leaden sky. When the coffin slipped gently down, their blotched and pimpled cheeks paled, and their bleared eyes, blinded with figures, turned away.

“We ought all to jump into this hole,” said Bourras to Denise, who had kept close to him. “In burying this poor girl they are burying the whole district. Oh! I know what I am saying, the old-fashioned business may go and join the white roses they are throwing on to her coffin.”

Denise brought back her uncle and brother in a mourning coach. The day was for her exceedingly dull and melancholy. In the first place, she began to get anxious at Jean’s paleness, and when she understood that it was on account of another woman, she tried to quiet him by opening her purse, but he shook his head and refused, saying it was serious this time, the niece of a very rich pastry-cook, who would not accept even a bunch of violets. Afterwards, in the afternoon, when Denise went to fetch Pépé from Madame Gras’s, the latter declared that he was getting too big for her to keep any longer; another annoyance, for she would be obliged to find him a school, perhaps send him away. And to crown all she was thoroughly heart-broken, on bringing Pépé back to kiss his aunt and uncle, to see the gloomy sadness of The Old Elbeuf. The shop was closed, and the old couple were at the further end of the little room, where they had forgotten to light the gas, notwithstanding the complete obscurity of this winter’s day. They were now quite alone, face to face, in the house, slowly emptied by ruin; and the death of their daughter deepened the shady corners, and was like the supreme cracking which was soon to break up the old rafters, eaten away by the damp. Beneath this destruction, her uncle, unable to stop himself, still kept walking round the table, with his funeral-like step, blind and silent; whilst her aunt said nothing, she had fallen into a chair, with the white face of a wounded person, whose blood was running away drop by drop. They did not even weep when Pépé covered their cold cheeks with kisses. Denise was choked with tears.

That same evening Mouret sent for the young girl to speak of a child’s garment he wished to launch forth, a mixture of the Scotch and Zouave costumes. And still trembling with pity, shocked at so much suffering, she could not contain herself; she first ventured to speak of Bourras, of that poor old man whom they were about to ruin. But, on hearing the umbrella maker’s name, Mouret flew into a rage at once. The old madman, as he called him, was the plague of his life, and spoilt his triumph by his idiotic obstinacy in not giving up his house, that ignoble hovel which was a disgrace to The Ladies’ Paradise, the only little corner of the vast block that escaped his conquest. The matter was becoming a regular nightmare; any one else but Denise speaking in favour of Bourras would have run the risk of being dismissed immediately, so violently was Mouret tortured by the sickly desire to kick the house down. In short, what did they wish him to do? Could he leave this heap of ruins sticking to The Ladies’ Paradise? It would be got rid of, the shop was to pass through it. So touch the worse for the old fool! And he spoke of his repeated proposals; he had offered him as much as a hundred thousand francs. Wasn’t that fair? He never higgled, he gave the money required; but in return he expected people to be reasonable, and allow him to finish his work! Did any one ever try to stop the locomotives on a railway? She listened to him, with drooping eyes, unable to find any but purely sentimental reasons. The old man was so old, they might have waited till his death; a failure would kill him. Then he added that he was no longer able to prevent things going their course. Bourdoncle had taken the matter up, for the board had resolved to put an end ta it. She had nothing more to add, notwithstanding the grievous pity she felt for her old friend.

After a painful silence, Mouret himself commenced to speak of the Baudus, by expressing his sorrow at the death of their daughter. They were very worthy people, very honest, but had been pursued by the worst of luck. Then he resumed his arguments; at bottom, they had really caused their own misfortune by obstinately sticking to the old ways in their worm-eaten place; it was not astonishing that the place should be falling about their heads. He had predicted it scores of times; she must remember that he had charged her to warn her uncle of a fatal disaster, if the latter still clung to his old-fashioned stupid ways. And the catastrophe had arrived; no one in the world could now prevent it They could not reasonably expect him to ruin himself to save the neighbourhood. Besides, if he had been foolish enough to close The Ladies’ Paradise, another big shop would have sprung up of itself next door, for the idea was now starting from the four corners of the globe; the triumph of these manufacturing and industrial cities was sown by the spirit of the times, which was sweeping away the tumbling edifice of former ages. Little by little Mouret warmed up, and found an eloquent emotion with which to defend himself against the hatred of his involuntary victims, the clamour of the small dying shops that was heard around him. They could not keep their dead, he continued, they must bury them; and with a gesture he sent down into the grave, swept away and threw into the common hole the corpse of old-fashioned business, the greenish, poisonous remains of which were becoming a disgrace to the bright, sun-lighted streets of new Paris. No, no, he felt no remorse, he was simply doing the work of his age, and she knew it; she, who loved life, who had a passion for big affairs, concluded in the full glare of publicity. Reduced to silence, she listened to him for some time, and then went away, her soul full of trouble.

That night Denise slept but little. A sleeplessness, traversed by nightmare, kept her turning over and over in her bed. It seemed to her that she was quite little, and she burst into tears, in their garden at Valognes, on seeing the blackcaps eat up the spiders, which themselves devoured the flies. Was it then really true, this necessity for the world to fatten on death, this struggle for existence which drove people into the charnel-house of eternal destruction? Afterwards she saw herself before the vault into which they had lowered Geneviève, then she perceived her uncle and aunt in their obscure dining-room. In the profound silence, a heavy voice, as of something tumbling down, traversed the dead air; it was Bourras’s house giving way, as if undermined by a high tide. The silence recommenced, more sinister than ever, and a fresh rumbling was heard, then another, then another; the Robineaus, the Bédorés, the Vanpouilles, cracked and fell down in their turn, the small shops of the neighbourhood were disappearing beneath an invisible pick, with a brusque, thundering noise, as of a tumbril being emptied. Then an immense pity awoke her with a start. Heavens! what tortures! There were families weeping, old men thrown out into the street, all the poignant dramas that ruin conjures up. And she could save nobody; and she felt that it was right, that all this misery was necessary for the health of the Paris of the future. When day broke she became calmer, a feeling of resigned melancholy kept her awake, turned towards the windows through which the light was making its way. Yes, it was the meed of blood that every revolution exacted from its martyrs, every step forward was made over the bodies of the dead. Her fear of being a wicked girl, of having assisted in the ruin of her fellow-creatures, now melted into a heartfelt pity, in face of these evils without remedy, which are the painful accompaniment of each generation’s birth. She finished by seeking some possible comfort in her goodness, she dreamed of the means to be employed in order to save her relations at least from the final crash.