Complete Works of Emile Zola (742 page)

“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 broke out into 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, that the people of whom I speak only touch me through you, and 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 broken with her 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 with 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 it was true, he had got thoroughly sick of girls picked up at theatres and night-houses; he had long since given up Clara and now ceased to visit at Madame Desforges’s house, where Bouthemont reigned supreme, while waiting for the opening of the new shop, The Four Seasons, which was already filling the newspapers with its advertisements.

“Must I go on my knees?” repeated he, almost choked by suppressed tears.

She stopped him, herself quite unable to conceal her emotion, deeply affected by this suffering passion. “You are wrong, sir, to agitate yourself in this way,” replied she, at last. “I assure you that all these wicked reports are untrue. This poor fellow you have just seen is no more guilty than I am.”

She said this with her brave, frank air, looking with her bright eyes straight into his face.

“Very good, I believe you,” murmured he. “I’ll not dismiss any of your comrades, since you take all these people under your protection. But why, then, do you repulse me, if you love no one else?”

A sudden constraint, an anxious bashfulness seized the young girl.

“You love someone, don’t you?” resumed he, in a trembling voice. “Oh! you may speak out; I have no claim on your affections. Do you love anyone?”

She turned very red, her heart was in her mouth, and she felt all falsehood impossible before this emotion which was betraying her, this repugnance for a lie which made the truth appear in her face in spite of all.

“Yes,” she at last confessed, feebly. “But I beg you to let me go away, sir, you are torturing me.”

She was now suffering in her turn. Was it not enough to have to defend herself against him? Was she to be obliged to fight against herself, against the breath of tenderness which sometimes took away all her courage? When he spoke to her thus, when she saw him so full of emotion, so overcome, she hardly knew why she still refused; and it was only afterwards that she found, in the depths of her healthy, girlish nature, the pride and the prudence which maintained her intact in her virtuous resolution. It was by a sort of instinct of happiness that she still remained so obstinate, to satisfy her need of a quiet life, and not from any idea of virtue. She would have fallen into this man’s arms, her heart seduced, her flesh overpowered if she had not experienced a sort of revolt, almost a feeling of repulsion before the definite bestowal of her being, ignorant of her future fate. The lover made her afraid, inspiring her with that fear that all women feel at the approach of the male.

Mouret gave way to a gesture of gloomy discouragement. He could not understand her. He turned towards his desk, took up some papers and then laid them down again, saying: “I will retain you no longer, mademoiselle; I cannot keep you against your will.”

“But I don’t wish to go away,” replied she, smiling. “If you believe me to be innocent, I will remain. One ought always to believe a woman to be virtuous, sir. There are numbers who are so, I assure you.”

Denise’s eyes had involuntarily wandered towards Madame Hédouin’s portrait: that lady so wise and so beautiful, whose blood, they said, had brought good fortune to the house. Mouret followed the young girl’s look with a start, for he thought he heard his dead wife pronounce this phrase, one of her own sayings which he at once recognized. And it was like a resurrection, he discovered in Denise the good sense, the just equilibrium of her he had lost, even down to the gentle voice, sparing of useless words. He was struck by this resemblance, which rendered him sadder still.

“You know I am yours,” murmured he in conclusion. “Do what you like with me.”

Then she resumed gaily: “That is right, sir. The advice of a woman, however humble she may be, is always worth listening to when she has a little intelligence. If you put yourself in my hands, be sure I’ll make nothing but a good man of you!”

She smiled, with that simple unassuming air which had such a charm. He also smiled in a feeble way, and escorted her as far as the door, as he would a lady.

The next day Denise was appointed first-hand. The dress and costume department was divided, the management creating especially for her one for children’s costumes, which was installed close to the ready-made one. Since her son’s dismissal, Madame Aurélie had been trembling, for she found the directors getting cool towards her, and saw the young girl’s power increasing daily. Would they not shortly sacrifice her in favor of this latter, by taking advantage of the first pretext? Her emperor’s mask, puffed up with fat, seemed to have got thinner from the shame which now stained the whole Lhomme dynasty; and she made a show of going away every evening on her husband’s arm, for they were brought nearer together by misfortune, and felt vaguely that the evil came from the disorder of their home; whilst the poor old man, more affected than her, in a sickly fear of being himself suspected of robbery, counted over the receipts, again and again, noisily, performing miracles with his amputated arm. So that, when she saw Denise appointed first-hand in the children’s costume department, she experienced such joy that she paraded the most affectionate feeling towards the young girl, really grateful to her for not having taken her place away. And she overwhelmed her with attentions, treating her as an equal, often going to talk to her in the neighboring department, with a stately air, like a queen-mother paying a visit to a young queen.

In fact, Denise was now at the summit. Her appointment as first-hand had destroyed the last resistance. If some still babbled, from that itching of the tongue which ravages every assemblage of men and women, they bowed very low before her face. Marguerite, now second-hand, was full of praise for her. Clara, herself, inspired with a secret respect before this good fortune, which she felt herself incapable of achieving, had bowed her head. But Denise’s victory was more complete still over the gentlemen; over Jouve, who now bent almost double whenever he addressed her; over Hutin, seized with anxiety on feeling his position giving way under him; and over Bourdoncle, reduced at last to powerlessness. When the latter saw her coming out of the director’s office, smiling, with her quiet air, and that the next day Mouret had insisted on the board creating this new department, he had yielded, vanquished by a sacred terror of woman. He had always given in thus before Mouret, recognizing him to be his master, notwithstanding his escapades and his idiotic love affairs. This time the woman had proved the stronger, and he was expecting to be swept away by the disaster.

However, Denise bore her triumph in a peaceable, charming manner, happy at these marks of consideration, even affecting to see in them a sympathy for the miseries of her debut and the final success of her patient courage. Thus she received with a laughing joy the slightest marks of friendship, and this caused her to be really loved by some, she was so kind, sympathetic, and full of affection. The only person for whom she still showed an invincible repugnance was Clara, having learned that this girl had amused herself by taking Colomban home with her one night as she had said she would do for a joke; and he, carried away by his passion, was becoming more dissipated every day, whilst poor Geneviève was slowly dying. The adventure was talked of at The Ladies’ Paradise, and thought very droll.

But this trouble, the only one she had outside, did not in any way change Denise’s equable temper. It was especially in her department that she was seen at her best, in the midst of her little world of babies of all ages. She was passionately fond of children, and she could not have been placed in a better position. Sometimes there were fully fifty girls and as many boys there, quite a turbulent school, let loose in their growing coquettish desires. The mothers completely lost their heads. She, conciliating, smiling, had the little ones placed in a line, on chairs; and when there happened to be amongst the number a rosy-cheeked little angel, whose pretty face tempted her, she would insist on serving her herself, bringing the dress and trying it on the child’s dimpled shoulders, with the tender precaution of an elder sister. There were fits of laughter, cries of joy, amidst the scolding voices of the mothers. Sometimes a little girl, already a grand lady, nine or ten years old, having a cloth jacket to try on, would stand studying it before a glass, turning round, with an absorbed air, her eyes sparkling with a desire to please. The counters were encumbered with the things unpacked, dresses in pink and blue Asian linen for children of from one to five years, blue sailor costumes, with plaited skirt and blouse, trimmed with fine cambric muslin, Louis XV. costumes, mantles, jackets, a pell-mell of narrow garments, stiffened in their infantine grace, something like the cloak-room of a regiment of big dolls, taken out of the wardrobes and given up to pillage. Denise had always a few sweets in her pockets, to appease the tears of some youngster in despair at not being able to carry off a pair of red trousers; and she lived there amongst these little ones as in her own family, feeling quite young again herself from the contact of all this innocence and freshness incessantly renewed around her skirts.

She now had frequent friendly conversations with Mouret. When she went to the office to take orders and furnish information, he kept her talking, enjoying the sound of her voice. It was what she laughingly called “making a good man of him.” In her prudent, cautious Norman head there sprang up all sorts of projects, ideas about the new business which she had already ventured to hint at when at Robineau’s, and some of which she had expressed on the evening of their walk in the Tuileries gardens. She could not be occupied in any matter, see any work going on, without being moved with a desire to introduce some improvement in the mechanism. Then, since her entry into The Ladies’ Paradise, she was especially pained by the precarious position of the employees; the sudden dismissals shocked her, she thought them iniquitous and stupid, hurtful to all, to the house as much as to the staff. Her former sufferings were still fresh in her mind, and her heart was seized with pity every time she saw a new comer, her feet bruised, her eyes dim with tears, dragging herself along in her misery in her silk dress, amidst the spiteful persecution of the old hands. This dog’s life made the best of them bad; and the sad work of destruction commenced: all eaten up by the trade before the age of forty, disappearing, falling into unknown places, a great many dying in harness, some of consumption and exhaustion, others of fatigue and bad air, a few thrown on the street, the happiest married, buried in some little provincial shop. Was it humane, was it just, this frightful consumption of human life that the big shops carried on every year? And she pleaded the cause of the wheel-work of the colossal machine, not from any sentimental reasons, but by arguments appealing to the very interests of the employers. To make a machine solid and strong, it is necessary to use good iron; if the iron breaks or is broken, there is a stoppage of work, repeated expenses of starting, quite a loss of power.

Sometimes she would become quite animated, she would picture an immense ideal bazaar, the phalansterium of modern commerce, in which each one should have his exact share of the profits, according to his merits, with the certainty of the future, assured to him by a contract. Mouret would feel amused at this, notwithstanding his fever. He accused her of socialism, embarrassed her by pointing out the difficulties of carrying out these schemes; for she spoke in the simplicity of her soul, bravely trusting in the future, when she perceived a dangerous hole underlying her tender-hearted plans. He was, however, shaken, captivated by this young voice, still trembling from the evils endured, so convinced and earnest in pointing out the reforms which would tend to consolidate the house; yet he listened while joking with her; the salesmen’s position gradually improved, the wholesale dismissals were replaced by a system of holidays granted during the dead seasons, and there was also about to be created a sort of benefit club which would protect the employees against bad times and ensure them a pension. It was the embryo of the vast trades’ unions of the twentieth century.

Denise did not confine her attention solely to healing the wounds from which she had herself bled; she conceived various delicate feminine ideas, which, communicated to Mouret, delighted the customers. She also caused Lhomme’s happiness by supporting a scheme he had long nourished, that of creating a band of music, in which all the executants should be chosen from amongst the staff. Three months later Lhomme had a hundred and twenty musicians under his direction, the dream of his whole life was realized. And a grand fête was given on the premises, a concert and a ball, to introduce the band of The Ladies’ Paradise to the customers and the whole world. The newspapers took the matter up, Bourdoncle himself, frightened by these innovations, was obliged to bow before this immense advertisement. Afterwards, a recreation room for the men was established, with two billiard tables and backgammon and chess boards. Then classes were held in the house of an evening; there were lessons in English and German, in grammar, arithmetic, and geography; they even had lessons in riding and fencing. A library was formed, ten thousand volumes were placed at the disposal of the employees. And a resident doctor giving consultations gratis was also added, together with baths, and hair-dressing and refreshment saloons. Every want in life was provided for, everything was to be obtained without going outside — board, lodging, and clothing. The Ladies’ Paradise sufficed entirely for all its own wants and pleasures, in the very heart of Paris, taken up by all this clatter, by this working city which was springing up so vigorously out of the ruins of the old streets, at last opened to the rays of the sun.