‘Surely not!’ he murmured. ‘It’s a joke! She’s too ugly.’
‘It must be said there’s nothing very beautiful about her,’ said Mouret, not daring to defend her, although he still felt touched by her rapture downstairs before his arrangement of silks.
But the book was brought in and Madame Aurélie came back to Denise, who had certainly not made a good impression. She looked very clean in her thin black woollen dress; they did not dwell on her poor get-up, as a uniform, the regulation silk dress, was provided; but she seemed very weak and puny, and her face was sad. Without insisting on the girls being beautiful, they wanted them to be attractive for the sales rooms, and beneath the gaze of all these ladies and gentlemen who were studying her, weighing her like a mare being haggled over by peasants at a fair, Denise finally lost what was left of her composure.
‘Your name?’ asked the buyer, pen in hand, ready to write at the end of a counter.
‘Denise Baudu, ma’am.’
‘Your age?’
‘Twenty years and four months.’
And she repeated, risking a glance at Mouret, at the man she took to be the head of a department, whom she kept on meeting and whose presence disturbed her:
‘I don’t look it, but I’m very strong.’
They smiled. Bourdoncle was studying his nails with impatience. Her words fell, moreover, in the middle of a discouraging silence.
‘What shop have you worked in in Paris?’ resumed Madame Aurélie.
‘But I’ve just arrived from Valognes, ma’am.’
This was a fresh disaster. Usually, the Ladies’ Paradise only took saleswomen with a year’s experience in one of the small shops in Paris. On hearing this, Denise thought all was lost, and had it not been for the children she would have turned on her heel in order to bring this useless interview to an end.
‘Where did you work at Valognes?’
‘At Cornaille’s.’
Mouret let slip a remark: ‘I know it, it’s a good firm.’
Usually he never interfered in the engagement of personnel, as the heads of departments were responsible for their own staff. But, with his sensitive flair for women, he felt a hidden charm in this girl, a quality of grace and tenderness of which she herself was unaware. The good reputation of the shop in which an applicant had started was very important; often it was the deciding factor in engaging someone. Madame Aurélie went on in a gentler tone:
‘And why did you leave Cornaille’s?’
‘For family reasons,’ Denise replied, blushing. ‘We’ve lost our parents; I had to follow my brothers … Here’s a testimonial.’
It was excellent. Her hopes were reviving, when a final question embarrassed her.
‘Do you have any other references in Paris? Where are you living?’
‘At my uncle’s,’ she murmured, hesitating to name him, fearing that they would never take the niece of a competitor. ‘At my uncle Baudu’s, over there, opposite.’
At that Mouret intervened a second time.
‘What! You’re Baudu’s niece! Did Baudu send you here?’
‘Oh! no, sir!’
And she could not help laughing, so odd did the idea seem to her. She was transfigured. She became quite rosy, and the smile on her rather large mouth seemed to light up her whole face. Her grey eyes shone with a tender light, delightful dimples appeared in her cheeks; even her fair hair seemed alive with the frank and courageous gaiety of her whole being.
‘She’s really pretty!’ whispered Mouret to Bourdoncle.
His colleague, with a gesture of annoyance, refused to agree. Clara pursed her lips, while Marguerite turned away. Only Madame Aurélie nodded in approval as Mouret continued:
‘Your uncle should have brought you himself; his recommendation is sufficient. They say he bears us a grudge. We’re more broad-minded, and if he can’t find a job for his niece in his own shop, well, we’ll show him that she only needs to knock at our door to be taken in. Tell him I’m still very fond of him—it’s not me he should blame, but the new business conditions. And tell him that he’ll end up ruining himself if he insists on sticking to all those ridiculous, old-fashioned ideas.’
Denise turned quite pale again. It was Mouret. No one had pronounced his name, but he had revealed who he was, and she guessed it now; she understood why this young man had caused her such emotion in the street, in the silk department, and again now. This emotion, which she could not understand, was oppressing her more and more, like a burden that was too heavy. All the stories her uncle had told came back to her, enlarging Mouret, surrounding him with a legend, establishing him as the master of the terrible machine which, since the morning, had been holding her in the iron teeth of its gear-wheels. And behind his handsome face, his well-trimmed beard, and his eyes the colour of old gold she saw the dead woman, Madame Hédouin, whose blood had helped to cement the stones of the shop. The cold shiver she had felt the day before seized her once more, and she thought she was simply afraid of him.
Meanwhile, Madame Aurélie had closed the book. She only wanted one saleswoman, and she already had ten applications. But her anxiety to please her employer was too great for her to hesitate. However, the application would still be treated in the usual way: Jouve, the shopwalker, would make inquiries and draw up a report; then the buyer would decide.
‘Very well, Mademoiselle Baudu,’ she said majestically, to preserve her authority. ‘We’ll write to you.’
Embarrassment held Denise rooted there for a moment longer. Surrounded by all these people, she did not know how to take her leave. At last, she thanked Madame Aurélie; and when she had to pass in front of Mouret and Bourdoncle she said goodbye to them. But they had already forgotten about her, for they were busy examining the model coat with Madame Frédéric, and did not even reply. Clara looked at Marguerite and made a gesture of annoyance, as if predicting that the new salesgirl would not have a very good time in the department. No doubt Denise felt this indifference and malice behind her back, for she went down the staircase as uncomfortably as she had gone up it, prey to a strange feeling of anguish, wondering whether she should be in despair or delighted at having come. Could she count on the job? In her anxiety, which had prevented her from understanding clearly, she was again beginning to have doubts about it. Of all her sensations, two remained and gradually replaced the others: the impression made on her by Mouret, so deep as to make her afraid; and Hutin’s kindness, the only pleasure she had had that morning, a memory of charm and gentleness which filled her with gratitude. When she went through the shop to go out she looked for the young man, happy at the thought of thanking him again with her eyes; and she felt quite sad not to see him.
‘Well, miss, were you successful?’ asked a timid voice when she finally reached the street.
She turned round and recognized the tall, pale, ungainly lad who had spoken to her in the morning. He too had just come out of the Ladies’ Paradise, and he looked even more frightened than she was, totally bewildered by the interrogation he had just been through.
‘Oh! I’ve really no idea, sir,’ she replied.
‘You’re in the same boat as me, then. What a way they’ve got of looking at you and talking to you in there! I’m trying for a place in the lace department; I was at Crèvecœur’s in the Rue du Mail.’
They were once more standing facing each other; and, not knowing how to say goodbye, they began to blush. Then the young man, just for something to say to allay his extreme shyness, ventured to ask her in his awkward, good-natured way:
‘What’s your name, miss?’
‘Denise Baudu.’
‘My name’s Henri Deloche.’
They were smiling now. Recognizing the similarity of their positions, they held out their hands to each other.
‘Good luck!’
‘Yes, good luck!’
CHAPTER 3
EVERY Saturday, between four and six, Madame Desforges served tea and cakes to those of her close friends who might wish to vis
it her. Her flat was on the third floor, at the corner of the Rue de Rivoli and the Rue d’Alger;* and the windows of both drawing-rooms overlooked the Tuileries Gardens.
On that particular Saturday, just as a servant was about to show him into the large drawing-room, Mouret, standing in the hall and gazing through an open door, glimpsed Madame Desforges crossing the small drawing-room. She stopped on seeing him, and he went in that way, greeting her very formally. Then, when the servant had closed the door, he quickly seized the young woman’s hand, and kissed it tenderly.
‘Be careful! I’ve got company!’ she said in a whisper, glancing towards the door of the large drawing-room. ‘I went to fetch this fan to show them.’
And she playfully tapped him on the face with the tip of the fan. She was dark and rather buxom, with large, jealous eyes. Still holding her hand, he asked:
‘Will he come?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she replied. ‘I have his word.’
They were referring to Baron Hartmann, director of the Crédit Immobilier.* Madame Desforges’s father had been an important civil servant, and she was the widow of a stockbroker who had left her a fortune—a fortune denied by some, exaggerated by others. It was rumoured that even while her husband was alive she had shown her gratitude to Baron Hartmann, who, as an important financier, had given useful advice to the family; and later on, after her husband’s death, the liaison had probably continued, though always discreetly, without imprudence or scandal. Madame Desforges never courted notoriety, and all doors were open to her in the upper middle class into which she had been born. Even now, when the passion of the banker, a sceptical, crafty man, was turning into a simple paternal affection, if she did permit herself certain lovers to whom he turned a blind eye, she displayed in her love-affairs such delicate restraint and tact, and a knowledge of the world so skilfully applied, that appearances were saved, and no one would have dared to question her virtue openly. Meeting Mouret at the house of some mutual friends, she had at first detested him; but she had yielded to him later on, as if carried away by the sudden passion of his attack, and while he was manœuvring in order to meet the Baron through her, she had gradually fallen truly in love with him, adoring him with the violence of a woman already thirty-five, but only admitting to twenty-nine, for she was in despair at the thought that he was younger than herself, terrified that she might lose him.
‘Does he know about it?’ he went on.
‘No, you must explain the affair to him yourself,’ she answered, no longer addressing him with the familiar ‘tu’.
She looked at him, thinking to herself that he could not know anything or he would not use her influence with the Baron like this, while pretending to consider him simply as an old friend of hers. But he still held her hand, calling her his sweet Henriette, and she felt her heart melting. Silently, she offered her lips to him, pressed them against his, then whispered:
‘Shh! They’re waiting for me … Follow me in.’
Female voices, muffled by the heavy curtains, were coming from the large drawing-room. She pushed the double door, leaving it wide open, and handed the fan to one of the four ladies who were sitting in the middle of the room.
‘Here it is,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know where it was; my maid would never have found it.’
And, turning round, she added gaily:
‘Do come in, Monsieur Mouret, come through the little drawing-room. It won’t be so ceremonious.’
Mouret bowed to the ladies, whom he knew. The drawing-room, with its Louis XVI furniture upholstered with flowered brocade, its gilded bronzes, and huge green plants, had a tender feminine intimacy, in spite of its high ceiling; and through the two windows the chestnut trees in the Tuileries Gardens could be seen, their leaves blowing about in the October wind.
‘This Chantilly isn’t bad at all!’ exclaimed Madame Bourdelais, who was holding the fan.
She was a small, fair woman of thirty, with a delicately shaped nose and sparkling eyes, one of Henriette’s old school-friends, who had married an assistant undersecretary in the Ministry of Finance. She came from an old middle-class family, and ran her house and her three children with efficiency, good grace, and an exquisite flair for the practical side of life.
‘And you paid twenty-five francs for it?’ she resumed, examining every stitch of the lace. ‘You say you got it in Luc,* from a local craftswoman? No, no, it isn’t expensive. But of course you had to have it mounted.’
‘Of course,’ Madame Desforges replied. ‘The mount cost me two hundred francs.’
Madame Bourdelais began to laugh. So that was what Henriette called a bargain! Two hundred francs for a plain ivory mount with a monogram on it! And for a simple little piece of Chantilly on which she had saved five francs! Similar fans could be found already mounted for a hundred and twenty francs. She named a shop in the Rue Poissonnière.
However, the fan was handed round by the ladies. Madame Guibal hardly gave it a glance. She was tall, thin, and red-haired, and looked utterly indifferent; though her grey eyes, occasionally penetrating her air of detachment, reflected the terrible pangs of egotism. She was never seen in the company of her husband, a well-known barrister at the Palais de Justice, who, so it was said, led a free life and was entirely devoted to his briefs and his pleasures.
‘Oh,’ she murmured as she passed the fan to Madame de Boves, ‘I don’t think I’ve bought more than a couple in my life. One is always given too many of them.’
The Countess replied in a subtly ironic voice:
‘You are so lucky, my dear, to have an attentive husband!’
And leaning over to her daughter, a tall girl of twenty and a half, she added:
‘Just look at the monogram, Blanche. What lovely work! It must have been the monogram that put up the price like that.’
Madame de Boves had just turned forty. She was a fine woman, with the figure of a goddess and a large face with regular features and big, sleepy eyes; her husband, Inspector-General of the Stud, had married her for her beauty. She appeared quite moved by the delicacy of the monogram, as if overwhelmed by desire; she turned pale with emotion. Suddenly, she said:
‘Tell us what you think, Monsieur Mouret. Is it too expensive, two hundred francs for this mount?’
Mouret had remained standing in the midst of the five women, smiling, taking an interest in what interested them. He picked up the fan, examined it, and was about to give his opinion when the servant opened the door and announced:
‘Madame Marty.’
A thin, ugly woman, ravaged by smallpox, and dressed with complicated elegance, came in. She was ageless; her thirty-five years looked like forty or thirty, depending on the nervous fever which agitated her. Her red leather bag, instead of being left outside, was hanging from her right hand.
‘My dear,’ she said to Henriette, ‘forgive me for bringing my bag … I called in at the Paradise on the way, and as I’ve been extravagant again, I didn’t want to leave this downstairs in my cab in case it was stolen.’
She noticed Mouret, and went on, laughing: ‘Ah! Monsieur Mouret, I didn’t mean to advertise for you; I didn’t know you were here … You really have got some wonderful lace at the moment.’
This turned the attention away from the fan, which the young man put down on a pedestal table. The ladies were full of curiosity to see what Madame Marty had bought. She was known for her passion for spending, her inability to resist temptation, strictly virtuous though she was, and incapable of yielding to a lover; but no sooner did she set her eyes on the slightest piece of finery than she would let herself go and the flesh was conquered. The daughter of a minor civil servant, she was ruining her husband, a teacher at the Lycée Bonaparte* who, in order to meet the family’s ever-increasing expenses, had to double his salary of six thousand francs by giving private lessons. She did not open her bag, but held it tightly on her lap, while talking about her daughter Valentine, who was fourteen and one of her most expensive indulgences, for she dressed her li
ke herself in all the latest fashions, which never failed to seduce her.
‘You know,’ she explained, ‘this winter, dresses for girls are trimmed with narrow lace … So when I saw some very pretty Valenciennes …’
She finally decided to open the bag. The ladies were craning their necks forward when, in the silence, the ante-room bell was heard.
‘It’s my husband,’ stammered Madame Marty, very confused. ‘He must have come to pick me up on his way from the Bonaparte.’
She quickly shut the bag, and instinctively made it disappear under her chair. All the ladies began to laugh. She blushed at her haste, and put the bag back on her lap, saying that men never understood and that there was no need for them to know.
‘Monsieur de Boves, Monsieur de Vallagnosc,’ the servant announced.
This was a surprise. Madame de Boves herself had not expected her husband. The latter, a handsome man, with moustaches and an imperial,* and with the stiff military bearing favoured at the Tuileries, kissed the hand of Madame Desforges, whom he had known as a girl in her father’s house. He stood aside so that the other visitor, a tall pale fellow with an anaemically distinguished look, could in his turn greet the mistress of the house. But the conversation had hardly started up again when two slight exclamations were uttered.
‘What! It’s you, Paul!’
‘Good Lord! Octave!’
Mouret and Vallagnosc shook hands. It was Madame Desforges’s turn to show surprise. So they knew each other? Yes, indeed, they had grown up together, at the same school in Plassans;* and it was quite by chance that they had never met at her house before.
Still hand in hand they went into the small drawing-room, joking as they did so, just as the servant brought in the tea, a Chinese service on a silver tray, which he placed near Madame Desforges in the centre of a marble pedestal table with a light brass mounting. The ladies drew up their chairs and began talking more loudly, all speaking at once, producing an endless cross-fire of remarks; Monsieur de Boves, standing behind them, leaned forward from time to time to say a few words, with the charm and courtesy which were part of his profession. The vast room, so elegantly and cheerfully furnished, was made even gayer by these chattering voices mingled with laughter.