The Ladies' Paradise

"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.

"Look here!" resumed Mouret, gaily, "will you be my ambassador? I intended increasing my offer to-morrow – of proposing eighty thousand francs to Bourras. Will you speak to him first about it? Tell him he's cutting his own throat. Perhaps he'll listen to you, as he has a liking for you, and you'll be doing him a real service."

"Very well!" said Denise, smiling also, "I will deliver your message, but I am afraid I shall not succeed."

Then a fresh silence ensued, neither of them having anything more to say. For a moment he attempted to talk of her uncle Baudu; but had to give it up on seeing how uncomfortable this made the girl. Nevertheless, they continued walking side by side, and at last found themselves near the Rue de Rivoli, in a path where it was still light. On emerging from the darkness of the trees this was like a sudden awakening. He understood that he could not detain her any longer.

"Good night, mademoiselle," he said.

"Good night, sir."

Nevertheless he did not go away. On raising his eyes he had perceived in front of him, at the corner of the Rue d'Alger, the lighted windows of Madame Desforges's flat whither he was bound. And looking at Denise, whom he could now see, in the pale twilight, she appeared to him very puny compared to Henriette. Why was it then that she touched his heart in this manner? It was a stupid caprice.

"This little man is getting tired," he resumed, by way of saying something. "Remember, mind, that our house will always be open to you; you've only to knock, and I'll give you every compensation possible. Good night, mademoiselle."

"Good night, sir."

When Mouret had quitted her, Denise went back under the chestnut-trees, into the black gloom. For a long time she walked on at random, between the huge trunks, her face burning, her head in a whirl of confused ideas. Pépé still held her hand and was stretching out his short legs to keep pace with her. She had forgotten him. But at last he said: "You go too quick, little mother."

At this she sat down on a bench; and as he was tired, the child went to sleep on her lap. She held him there, pressing him to her virgin bosom, her eyes wandering far away into the darkness. When, an hour later, they slowly returned to the Rue de la Michodière, she had regained her usual quiet, sensible expression.

"Hell and thunder!" shouted Bourras, when he saw her coming, "the blow is struck. That rascal of a Mouret has just bought my house." He was half mad, and was striking himself in the middle of the shop with such outrageous gestures that he almost broke the windows. "Ah! the scoundrel! It's the fruiterer who's written to tell me of it. And how much do you think the rogue, has got for the house? One hundred and fifty thousand francs, four times its value! There's another thief, if you like! Just fancy, he has taken advantage of my embellishments, making capital out of the fact that the house has been done up. How much longer are they going to make a fool of me?"

The thought that his money spent on paint and whitewash had brought the fruiterer a profit exasperated him. And now Mouret would be his landlord; he would have to pay him! It was beneath this detested competitor's roof that he must in future live! Such a thought raised his fury to the highest pitch.

"Ah! I could hear them digging a hole through the wall. At this moment, they are here, eating out of my very plate, so to say!"

And the shop shook under his heavy fist as he banged it on the counter, making the umbrellas and the parasols dance again.

Denise, bewildered, could not get in a word. She stood there, motionless, waiting for the end of this fit; whilst Pépé, very tired, fell asleep again, this time on a chair. At last, when Bourras became a little calmer, she resolved to deliver Mouret's message. No doubt the old man was irritated, but the excess even of his anger, the blind alley, as it were, in which he found himself, might determine an abrupt acceptance on his part.

"I've just met some one," she commenced. "Yes, a person from The Paradise, who is very well informed. It appears that they are going to offer you eighty thousand francs to-morrow."

"Eighty thousand francs!" he interrupted, in a terrible voice; "eighty thousand francs! Not for a million now!"

She tried to reason with him. But at that moment the shop door opened, and she suddenly drew back, pale and silent. It was her uncle Baudu, with his yellow face and aged look. Bourras caught his neighbour by the buttonhole, and without allowing him to say a word, as if goaded on by his presence, roared in his face: "What do you think they have the cheek to offer me? Eighty thousand francs! They've got to that point, the brigands! they think I'm going to sell myself like a prostitute. Ah! they've bought the house, and think they've got me now! Well! it's all over, they shan't have it! I might have given way, perhaps; but now it belongs to them, let them try to take it!"

"So the news is true?" said Baudu, in his slow voice. "I had heard of it, and came over to know if it was so."

"Eighty thousand francs!" repeated Bourras. "Why not a hundred thousand at once? It's this immense sum of money that makes me so indignant. Do they think they can make me commit a knavish trick with their money! They shan't have it, by heavens! Never, never, you hear me?"

Then Denise broke her silence to remark, in her calm, quiet way: "They'll have it in nine years' time, when your lease expires."

And, notwithstanding her uncle's presence, she begged the old man to accept. The struggle was becoming impossible, he was fighting against a superior force; it would be madness to refuse the fortune offered him. But he still replied no. In nine years' time he hoped to be dead, so as not to see it.

"You hear, Monsieur Baudu," he resumed, "your niece is on their side, it's she whom they have commissioned to corrupt me. She's with the brigands, my word of honour!"

Baudu, who had so far appeared not to notice Denise, now raised his head, with the surly movement that he affected when standing at his shop door, every time she passed. But, slowly, he turned round and looked at her, and his thick lips trembled.

"I know it," he replied in an undertone, and he continued looking at her.

Denise, affected almost to tears, thought him greatly changed by worry. Perhaps too he was stricken with remorse at not having assisted her during the time of misery through which she had lately passed. Then the sight of Pépé sleeping on the chair, amidst the hubbub of the discussion, seemed to suddenly inspire him with compassion.

"Denise," said he simply, "come to-morrow and have dinner with us, and bring the little one. My wife and Geneviève asked me to invite you if I met you."

She turned very red, went up to him and kissed him. And as he was going away, Bourras, delighted at this reconciliation, again cried out to him: "Just give her a lecture, she isn't a bad sort. As for me, the house may fall, I shall be found in the ruins."

"Our houses are already falling, neighbour," said Baudu with a gloomy air. "We shall all of us be crushed under them."

CHAPTER VIII

At this time the whole neighbourhood was talking of the great thoroughfare which was to be opened between the Bourse and the new Opera House, under the name of the Rue du Dix-Décembre.3 The expropriation judgments had been delivered, and two gangs of demolishers were already beginning operations at either end, the first pulling down the old mansions in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, and the other destroying the thin walls of the old Vaudeville. You could hear the picks getting closer, and the Rue de Choiseul and the Rue de la Michodière waxing quite excited over their condemned houses. Before a fortnight passed, the opening would leave in both these streets a great gap full of sunlight and uproar.

But what stirred up the district still more, was the work undertaken at The Ladies' Paradise. People talked of considerable enlargements, of gigantic shops with frontages on the Rue de la Michodière, the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, and the Rue Monsigny. Mouret, it was said, had made arrangements with Baron Hartmann, the chairman of the Crédit Immobilier, and would occupy the whole block, excepting the future frontage in the Rue du Dix-Décembre, where the baron wished to erect a rival establishment to the Grand Hôtel. The Paradise people were buying up leases on all sides, shops were closing, and tenants moving; and in the empty buildings an army of workmen was commencing the various alterations amidst a cloud of plaster. And alone in all this disorder, old Bourras's narrow hovel remained intact, still obstinately clinging between the high walls covered with masons.

When on the following day, Denise went with Pépé to her uncle Baudu's, the street was blocked up by a line of carts discharging bricks outside the Hôtel Duvillard. Baudu was standing at his shop door looking on with a gloomy air. In proportion as The Ladies' Paradise became larger, The Old Elbeuf seemed to grow smaller. The young girl thought that the windows looked blacker than ever, lower and lower still beneath the first storey, with its rounded prison-like windows. The damp, moreover, had still further discoloured the old green sign-board; woefulness appeared on the whole frontage, livid in hue, and, as it were, shrunken.

"Here you are, then!" said Baudu. "Take care! they would run right over you."

Inside the shop, Denise experienced the same heart pang; she found it darker, steeped more deeply than ever in the somnolence of approaching ruin. Empty corners formed dark cavities, dust was covering the counters and filling the drawers, whilst a cellar-like odour of saltpetre rose from the bales of cloth that were no longer moved about. At the desk Madame Baudu and Geneviève stood mute and motionless, as in some solitary spot, where no one would come to disturb them. The mother was hemming some dusters. The daughter, her hands resting on her knees, was gazing at the emptiness before her.

"Good evening, aunt," said Denise; "I'm delighted to see you again, and if I have hurt your feelings, I hope you will forgive me."

Madame Baudu kissed her, greatly affected. "My poor child," said she, "if I had no other troubles, you would see me gayer than this."

"Good evening, cousin," resumed Denise, kissing Geneviève on the cheeks.

The latter woke with a sort of start, and returned her kisses but without finding a word to say. Then the two women took up Pépé, who was holding out his little arms, and the reconciliation was complete.

"Well! it's six o'clock, let's go to dinner," said Baudu. "Why haven't you brought Jean?"

"Well, he was to have come," murmured Denise, in embarrassment. "I saw him this morning, and he faithfully promised me. Oh! we must not wait for him; his master has kept him, I dare say." In reality she suspected some extraordinary adventure, and wished to apologize for him in advance.

"In that case, we will commence," said her uncle and turning towards the dim depths of the shop, he added:

"You may as well dine with us, Colomban. No one will come."

Denise had not noticed the assistant. Her aunt explained to her that they had been obliged to get rid of the other salesman and the young lady. Business was getting so bad that Colomban sufficed; and even he spent many idle hours, drowsy, falling asleep with his eyes open.

The gas was burning in the dining-room, although they were now in the long days of summer. Denise shivered slightly as she went in, chilled by the dampness oozing from the walls. She once more beheld the round table, the places laid on the American cloth, the window deriving its air and light from the dark and fetid back-yard. And all these things appeared to her to be gloomier than ever, and tearful like the shop.

"Father," said Geneviève, uncomfortable for Denise's sake, "shall I close the window? there's rather a bad smell."

He himself smelt nothing, and seemed surprised. "Shut the window if you like," he replied at last. "But we shan't get any air then."

And indeed they were almost stifled. It was a very simple family dinner. After the soup, as soon as the servant had served the boiled beef, the old man as usual began talking about the people opposite. At first he showed himself very tolerant, allowing his niece to have a different opinion.

"Dear me!" said he, "you are quite free to support those big tricky shows. Each person has his ideas, my girl. If you were not disgusted at being so disgracefully chucked out you must have strong reasons for liking them; and even if you went back again, I should think none the worse of you. No one here would be offended, would they?"

"Oh, no!" murmured Madame Baudu.

Thereupon Denise quietly gave her reasons for her preference, just as she had at Robineau's: explaining the logical evolution in business, the necessities of modern times, the greatness of these new creations, in short, the growing well-being of the public. Baudu, his eyes dilated, and his mouth clammy, listened with a visible mental strain. Then, when she had finished, he shook his head.

"That's all phantasmagoria, you know. Business is business, there's no getting over that. Oh! I own that they succeed, but that's all. For a long time I thought they would smash up; yes, I expected that, waiting patiently – you remember? Well, no, it appears that nowadays thieves make fortunes, whilst honest people die of hunger. That's what we've come to. I'm obliged to bow to facts. And I do bow, on my word, I do bow to them!" A deep anger was gradually rising within him. All at once he flourished his fork. "But The Old Elbeuf will never give way! I said as much to Bourras, you know, 'Neighbour,' said I 'you're going over to the cheapjacks; your paint and your varnish are a disgrace to you.'"

"Eat your dinner!" interrupted Madame Baudu, feeling anxious, on seeing him so excited.