The Ladies' Paradise

“No,” repeated Denise.

“Well! you are very foolish. It’s inevitable, my dear, and so natural. We all do it sooner or later. Look at me, I was a probationer, like you, without a sou. We are boarded and lodged, it’s true; but there’s our dress; besides, it’s impossible to go without a copper in one’s pocket, shut up in one’s room, watching the flies. So you see girls forcibly drift into it.”

She then spoke of her first lover, a lawyer’s clerk whom she had met at a party at Meudon. After him, came a post-office clerk. And, finally, ever since the autumn, she had been keeping company with a salesman at the Bon Marche, a very nice tall fellow, with whom she spent all her leisure time. Never more than one sweetheart at a time, however. She was very respectable in her way, and became indignant when she heard talk of those girls who yielded to the first-comer.

“I don’t tell you to misconduct yourself, you know!” said she quickly. “For instance, I should not like to be seen with your Clara, for fear people should say I was as bad as she. But when a girl stays quietly with one lover, and has nothing to blame herself for – do you think that wrong?”

“No,” replied Denise. “But I don’t care for it, that’s all.” There was a fresh silence. In the small icy-cold room they were smiling to each other, greatly affected by this whispered conversation. “Besides, one must have some affection for some one before doing so,” resumed she, her cheeks scarlet.

Pauline was astonished. She set up a laugh, and embraced her a second time, saying: “But, my darling, when you meet and like each other! You are funny! People won’t force you. Look here, would you like Bauge to take us somewhere in the country on Sunday? He’ll bring one of his friends.”

“No,” said Denise, in her gently obstinate way.

Pauline insisted no longer. Each one was free to act as she liked. What she had said was out of pure kindness of heart, for she felt really grieved to see a comrade so miserable. And as it was nearly midnight, she got up to leave. But before doing so she forced Denise to accept the six francs she wanted, begging her not to trouble about the matter, but to repay the amount when she earned more.

“Now,” added she, “blow your candle out, so that they can’t see which door opens; you can light it again immediately.”

The candle blown out, they shook hands; and Pauline ran off to her room, without leaving any trace in the darkness but the vague rustling of her petticoats amidst the deep slumber of the occupants of the other little rooms.

Before going to bed Denise wanted to finish her boot and do her washing. The cold became sharper still as the night advanced; but she did not feel it, this conversation had stirred up her heart’s blood. She was not shocked, it seemed to her that every one had a right to arrange her life as she liked, when alone and free in the world. She had never given way to such ideas; her sense of right and her healthy nature maintained her naturally in the respectability in which she had always lived. About one o’clock she at last went to bed. No, she did not love any one. So what was the use of disarranging her life, of spoiling the maternal devotion she had vowed for her two brothers? However, she did not sleep; a crowd of indistinct forms passed before her closed eyes, vanishing in the darkness.

From this moment Denise took an interest in the love-stories of the department. During the slack moments they were constantly occupied by their affairs with the men. Gossiping tales flew about, stories of adventures amused the girls for a week. Clara was a scandal; she had three lovers, without counting a string of chance admirers whom she had in tow; and, if she did not leave the shop, where she did the least work possible, disdaining the money which she could easily and more agreeably earn elsewhere, it was to shield herself from her family; for she was mortally afraid of old Prunaire, who threatened to come to Paris and break her arms and legs with his clogs. Marguerite, on the contrary, behaved very well, and was not known to have any lover; this caused some surprise, for all knew of her adventure – her coming to Paris to be confined in secret; how had she come to have the child, if she were so virtuous? And there were some who hinted at an accident, adding that she was now reserving herself for her cousin at Grenoble. The young ladies also joked about Madame Frédéric, declaring that she was discreetly connected with certain great personages; the truth was that they knew nothing of her love-affairs; for she disappeared every evening, stiff as starch in her widow’s ill-temper, evidently in a great hurry, though nobody knew where she was running off to so eagerly. As to Madame Aurélie’s passions, her pretended larks with obedient young men, they were certainly false; mere inventions, spread abroad by discontented saleswomen just for fun. Perhaps she had formerly displayed rather too much motherly feeling for one of her son’s friends, but she now occupied too high a place in the drapery business to allow her to amuse herself with such childish matters. Then there was the crowd leaving in the evening, nine girls out of every ten having young men waiting for them at the door; in the Place Gaillon, along the Rue de la Michodière, and the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, there was always quite a troop of men standing motionless, watching for the girls coming out; and, when they came, each one gave his arm to his lady and disappeared, talking with a marital tranquillity.

But what troubled Denise most was to have discovered Colomban’s secret. He was continually to be seen on the other side of the street, at the door of The Old Elbeuf, his eyes raised, and never quitting the young ladies in the readymade department. When he felt Denise was watching him he blushed and turned away his head, as if afraid she might betray him to Geneviève, although there had been no further connection between the Baudus and their niece since her engagement at The Ladies’ Paradise. At first she had thought he was in love with Marguerite, on seeing his despairing looks, for Marguerite, being very quiet, and sleeping in the building, was not very easy to get at. But what was her astonishment to find that Colomban’s ardent glances were intended for Clara. He had been like that for months, devoured by passion on the opposite side of the way, without finding the courage to declare himself; and that for a girl who was perfectly free, who lived in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, and whom he could have spoken to any evening before she walked off on the arm of a fresh fellow! Clara herself appeared to have no idea of her conquest. Denise’s discovery filled her with a painful emotion. Was love, then, such a stupid thing as that? What! this fellow, who had real happiness within his reach, was ruining his life, enraptured with this good-for-nothing girl as if she were a saint! From that day she was seized with a feeling of grief every time she saw Geneviève’s pale and suffering face behind the green panes of The Old Elbeuf.

In the evening, Denise could not help thinking a great deal, on seeing the young ladies march off with their sweethearts Those who did not sleep at The Ladies’ Paradise, disappeared until the next day, bringing back into their departments an outside odour, a sort of troubling, unknown impression. The young girl was sometimes obliged to reply with a smile to a friendly nod from Pauline, whom Bauge waited for every evening regularly at half-past eight, at the corner of the fountain in the Place Gaillon. Then, after having gone out the last and taken a furtive walk, always alone, she was invariably the first in, going upstairs to work, or to bed, her head filled with dreams, full of curiosity about this outdoor life, of which she knew nothing. She certainly did not envy the young ladies, she was happy in her solitude, in that unsociableness to which her timidity condemned her, as to a refuge; but her imagination carried her away, she tried to guess things, evoking the pleasures constantly described before her, the cafés, the restaurants, the theatres, the Sundays spent on the water and in the country taverns. This filled her with a mental weakness, a desire mingled with lassitude; and she seemed to be already tired of those amusements which she had never tasted.

However, there was but little room for these dangerous dreams in her daily working life. During the thirteen hours’ hard work in the shop, there was no time for any display of tenderness between the salesmen and the saleswomen. If the continual fight for money had not abolished the sexes, the unceasing press of business which occupied their minds and fatigued their bodies would have sufficed to kill all desire. But very few love-affairs had been known in the establishment amidst the hostilities and friendships between the men and the women, the constant elbowings from department to department. They were all nothing but the wheels, turned round by the immense machine, abdicating their personalities, simply contributing their strength to this commonplace, powerful total. It was only outside that they resumed their individual lives, with the abrupt flame of awakening passions.

Denise, however, one day saw Albert Lhomme slipping a note into the hand of a young lady in the underclothing department, after having several times passed through with an air of indifference. The dead season, which lasts from December to February was commencing; and she had periods of rest, hours spent on her feet, her eyes wandering all over the shop, waiting for customers. The young ladies of her department were especially friendly with the salesmen who served the lace, but their intimacy never went any further than some rather risky jokes, exchanged in whispers. In the lace department there was a second-hand, a gay youth who pursued Clara with all sorts of abominable stories, simply for a joke – so careless at heart that he made no effort to meet her outside; and thus it was from counter to counter, between the gentlemen and the young ladies, a series of winks, nods, and remarks, which they alone understood. At times they indulged in some sly gossip with their backs half turned and with a dreamy air, in order to put the terrible Bourdoncle off the scent As for Deloche, for a long time he contented him self with smiling at Denise when he met her; but, getting bolder, he occasionally murmured a friendly word. The day she had noticed Madame Aurélie’s son giving a note to the young lady in the under-linen department, Deloche was asking her if she had enjoyed her lunch, feeling to want to say something, and unable to find anything more amiable. He also saw the white paper; and looking at the young girl, they both blushed at this intrigue carried on before them.

But under these rumours which gradually awoke the woman in her, Denise still retained her infantine peace of mind. The one thing that stirred her heart was meeting with Hutin. But even that was only gratitude in her eyes; she simply thought herself touched by the young man’s politeness. He could not bring a customer to the department without her feeling quite confused. Several times, on returning from a pay-desk, she found herself making a détour, uselessly passing the silk counter, her bosom heaving with emotion. One afternoon she met Mouret there, who seemed to follow her with a smile. He paid no more attention to her now, only addressing a few words to her from time to time, to give her a few hints about her toilet, and to joke with her, as an impossible girl, a little savage almost like a boy, of whom he would never make a coquette, notwithstanding all his knowledge of women; sometimes he even ventured to laugh at and tease her, without wishing to acknowledge to himself the charm which this little saleswoman inspired in him, with her comical head of hair. Before this mute smile, Denise trembled, as if she were in fault Did he know why she was going through the silk department, when she could not herself have explained what made her make such a détour?

Hutin, moreover, did not seem to be aware in any way of the young girl’s grateful looks. The shop-girls were not his style, he affected to despise them, boasting more than ever of extraordinary adventures with the lady customers; a baroness had been struck with him at his counter, and the wife of an architect had fallen into his arms one day when he went to her house about an error in measuring he had made. Beneath this Norman boasting he simply concealed girls picked up in cafés and music-halls. Like all young gentlemen in the drapery line, he had a mania for spending, fighting in his department the whole week with a miser’s greediness, with the sole wish to squander his money on Sunday on the racecourses, in the restaurants, and dancing-saloons; never thinking of saving a penny, spending his salary as soon as he drew it, absolutely indifferent about the future. Favier did not join him in these parties. Hutin and he, so friendly in the shop, bowed to each other at the door, where all further intercourse ceased. A great many of the shopmen, in continual contact indoors, became strangers, ignorant of each other’s lives, as soon as they set foot in the streets. But Liénard was Hutin’s intimate friend. Both lived in the same lodging-house, the Hôtel de Smyrne, in the Rue Sainte-Anne, a murky building entirely inhabited by shop assistants. In the morning they arrived together; then, in the evening, the first one free, after the folding was done, waited for the other at the Cafe Saint-Roch, in the Rue Saint-Roch, a little café where the employees of The Ladies’ Paradise usually met, brawling, drinking, and playing cards amidst the smoke of their pipes. They often stopped there till one in the morning, until the tired landlord turned them out. For the last month they had been spending three evenings a week at a free-and-easy at Montmartre; and they took their friends with them, creating a success for Mademoiselle Laure, a music-hall singer. Hutin’s latest conquest, whose talent they applauded with such violent blows and such a clamour that the police had been obliged to interfere on two occasions.

The winter passed in this way, and Denise at last obtained three hundred francs a-year fixed salary. It was quite time, for her shoes were completely worn out. For the last month she had avoided going out, for fear of bursting them entirely.

“What a noise you make with your shoes, mademoiselle!” Madame Aurélie very often remarked, with an irritated look. “It’s intolerable. What’s the matter with your feet?”

The day Denise appeared with a pair of cloth boots, for which she had given five francs, Marguerite and Clara expressed their astonishment in a kind of half whisper, so as to be heard.

“Hullo! the ‘unkempt girl’ has given up her goloshes,” said the one.

“Ah,” retorted the other, “she must have cried over them. They were her mother’s.”

In point of fact, there was a general uprising against Denise. The girls of her department had found out her friendship with Pauline, and thought they saw a certain bravado in this affection displayed for a saleswoman of a rival counter. They spoke of treason, accused her of going and repeating their slightest words. The war between the two departments became more violent than ever, it had never waxed so warm; hard words were exchanged like cannon-balls, and there was even a slap given one evening behind some boxes of chemises. Perhaps this remote quarrel arose from the fact that the young ladies in the under-linen department wore woollen dresses, whilst those in the ready-made one wore silk. In any case, the former spoke of their neighbours with the shocked air of respectable girls; and facts proved that they were right, for it had been remarked that the silk dresses appeared to have a certain influence on the dissolute habits of the young ladies who wore them. Clara was taunted with her troop of lovers, even Marguerite had, so to say, had her child thrown in her face, whilst Madame Frédéric was accused of all sorts of concealed passions. And this was solely on account of that Denise!

“Now, young ladies, no ugly words; behave yourselves!” Madame Aurélie would say with her imperial air, amidst the rising passions of her little kingdom. “Show who you are.”

At heart she preferred to remain neutral. As she confessed one day, when talking to Mouret, these girls were all about the same, one was as good as the other. But she suddenly became impassioned when she learnt from Bourdoncle that he had just caught her son downstairs kissing a young girl belonging to the under-linen department, the saleswoman to whom he had passed several letters. It was abominable, and she roundly accused the under-linen department of having laid a trap for Albert. Yes, it was a got-up affair against herself, they were trying to dishonour her by ruining a child without experience, after seeing that it was impossible to attack her department. Her only object in making such a noise was to complicate the business, for she knew what her son was, fully aware that he was capable of doing all sorts of stupid things. For a time the matter assumed a grave aspect, Mignot, the glove salesman, was mixed up in it. He was a great friend of Albert’s, and the rumour got circulated that he favoured the mistresses Albert sent him, girls with big chignons, who rummaged in the boxes for hours together; and there was also a story about some Swedish kid gloves given to the girl of the under-linen department which was never properly cleared up. At last the scandal was hushed up out of regard for Madame Aurélie, whom Mouret himself treated with deference. Bourdoncle contented himself a week after with dismissing, for some slight offence, the girl who allowed herself to be kissed. If they shut their eyes to the terrible doings of their employees outdoors, the managers did not tolerate the least nonsense in the house.

And it was Denise who suffered for all this. Madame Aurélie, although perfectly well aware of what was going on, nourished a secret rancour against her; she saw her laughing one evening with Pauline, and took it for bravado, concluding that they were gossiping over her son’s love-affairs. And she caused the young girl to be isolated more than ever in the department. For some time she had been thinking of inviting the young ladies to spend a Sunday near Rambouillet, at Rigolles, where she had bought a country house with the first hundred thousand francs she had saved; and she suddenly decided to do so; it would be a means of punishing Denise, of putting her openly on one side. She was the only one not invited. For a fortnight in advance, nothing was talked of but this party; the girls kept their eyes on the sky, and had already mapped out the whole day, looking forward to all sorts of pleasures: donkey-riding, milk and brown bread. And they were to be all women, which was more amusing still! As a rule, Madame Aurélie killed her holidays in this way, going out with her lady friends; for she was so little accustomed to being at home, she always felt so uncomfortable, so strange, during the rare occasions she could dine with her husband and son, that she preferred to throw up even those occasions, and go and dine at a restaurant. Lhomme went his own way, enraptured to resume his bachelor existence, and Albert, greatly relieved, went off with his beauties; so that, unaccustomed to being at home, feeling in each other’s way, and wearying each other when together on a Sunday, they paid nothing more than a flying visit to the house, as to some common hôtel where people take a bed for the night. Regarding the excursion to Rambouillet, Madame Aurélie simply declared that propriety prevented Albert joining them, and that the father himself would display great tact by refusing to come; a declaration which enchanted the two men. However, the happy day was drawing near, and the young girls chattered more than ever, relating their preparations in the way of dress, as if they were going on a six months’ tour, whilst Denise had to listen to them, pale and silent in her abandonment.

“Ah, they make you wild, don’t they?” said Pauline to her one morning. “If I were you I would just catch them nicely! They are going to enjoy themselves. I would enjoy myself too. Come with us on Sunday, Bauge is going to take me to Joinville.”

“No, thanks,” said the young girl with her quiet obstinacy.

“But why not? Are you still afraid of being taken by force?”

And Pauline, laughed heartily. Denise also smiled. She knew how such things came about; it was always during some similar excursions that the young ladies had made the acquaintance of their first lovers, brought by chance by a friend; and she did not want to.

“Come,” resumed Pauline, “I assure you that Bauge won’t bring any one. We shall be all by ourselves. As you don’t want to, I won’t go and marry you off, of course.”

Denise hesitated, tormented by such a strong desire to go that the blood flew to her cheeks. Since the girls had been talking about their country pleasures she had felt stifled, overcome by a longing for fresh air, dreaming of the tall grass into which she could sink down up to the neck, of the giant trees the shadows of which should flow over her like so much cooling water. Her childhood, spent in the rich verdure of the Cotentin, was awakening with a regret for sun and air.

“Well! yes,” said she at last.

Everything was soon arranged. Bauge was to come and fetch them at eight o’clock, in the Place Gaillon; from there they would take a cab to the Vincennes Station. Denise, whose twenty-five francs a month was quickly swallowed up by the children, had only been able to do up her old black woollen dress, by trimming it with strips of check poplin; and she had also made herself a bonnet, a shape covered with silk and ornamented with a simple blue ribbon. In this simple attire she looked very young, like an overgrown girl, exceedingly clean, rather shamefaced and embarrassed by her luxuriant hair, which appeared through the nakedness of her bonnet.

Pauline, on the contrary, displayed a pretty violet and white striped silk dress, a hat richly trimmed and laden with feathers, jewels round her neck and rings on her fingers, which gave her the appearance of a well-to-do tradesman’s wife. It was like a Sunday revenge on the woollen dress she was obliged to wear all the week in the shop; whilst Denise, who wore her uniform silk from Monday to Saturday, resumed, on Sunday, her thin woollen dress of misery.

“There’s Bauge,” said Pauline, pointing to a tall fellow standing near the fountain.

She introduced her lover, and Denise felt at her ease at once, he seemed such a nice fellow. Bauge, big, strong as an ox, had a long Flemish face, in which his expressionless eyes twinkled with an infantine puerility. Born at Dunkerque, the younger son of a grocer, he had come to Paris, almost turned out by his father and brother, who thought him a fearful dunce. However, he made three thousand five hundred francs a year at the Bon Marche. He was rather stupid, but a very good hand in the linen department. The women thought him nice.

“And the cab?” asked Pauline.

They had to go as far as the Boulevard. It was already rather warm in the sun, the glorious May morning seemed to laugh on the street pavement. There was not a cloud in the sky; quite a gaiety floated in the blue air, transparent as crystal. An involuntary smile played on Denise’s lips; she breathed freely; it seemed to her that her bosom was throwing off the stifling sensation of six months. At last she no longer felt the stuffy air and the heavy stones of The Ladies’ Paradise weighing her down! She had then the prospect of a long day in the country before her! and it was like a new lease of life, an endless joy, into which she entered with all the glee of a little child. However, when in the cab, she turned her eyes away, feeling very awkward as Pauline bent over to kiss her lover.

“Oh, look!” said she, her head still at the window, “there’s Monsieur Lhomme. How he does walk!”

“He’s got his French horn,” added Pauline, leaning out. “What an old stupid! One would think he was running to meet his girl!”

Lhomme, with his instrument under his arm, was spinning along past the Gymnase Theatre, his nose in the air, laughing with delight at the thought of the treat in store for him. He was going to spend the day at a friend’s, a flautist at a small theatre, where a few amateurs indulged in a little chamber music on Sundays as soon as breakfast was over.

“At eight o’clock! what a madman!” resumed Pauline. “And you know that Madame Aurélie and all her clique must have taken the Rambouillet train that left at half-past six. It’s very certain the husband and wife won’t come across each other.”