‘Come on! Let’s hurry!’ Mouret shouted, with the calm assurance born of his genius. ‘Here are some more suits I want taken upstairs … And are the Japanese things installed on the central landing? … One last effort, lads, and you’ll see what a sale we’re going to have!’
Bourdoncle, too, had been there since dawn. He understood no better than the others, and was watching the governor most anxiously. He hadn’t dared to question him, knowing how he responded in such moments of crisis. All the same, he decided to risk it, and asked gently:
‘Was it really necessary to turn everything upside-down like that, on the eve of our exhibition?’
At first Mouret shrugged his shoulders without replying. Then, since Bourdoncle insisted, he burst out:
‘So that the customers should all huddle together in the same corner, perhaps? An excellent geometrical idea I had when I thought of that! I’d never have forgiven myself… Can’t you see that I’d have localized the crowd? A woman would have come in, gone straight to where she wanted, passed from the petticoat department to the dress department, from the dresses to the coats, and then left, without even having got a bit lost! Not one of them would really have seen our shop!’
‘But,’ Bourdoncle pointed out, ‘now that you’ve mixed everything up and thrown everything all over the place, the staff will wear their legs out taking customers from department to department.’
Mouret made a gesture of supreme contempt.
‘I don’t care a damn! They’re young; it’ll make them grow. So much the better if they walk about! They’ll look more numerous, they’ll swell the crowd. As long as there’s a crush, all will be well!’
He was laughing, and deigned to explain his idea, lowering his voice:
‘Listen, Bourdoncle, this is what will happen … First, this continual circulation of customers scatters them all over the place, multiplies them, and makes them lose their heads; secondly, as they have to be conducted from one end of the shop to the other—for example, if they want a lining after having bought a dress—these journeys in every direction triple, as they see it, the size of the shop; thirdly, they’re forced to go through departments where they’d never have set foot, temptations present themselves as they pass, and they succumb; fourthly …’
Bourdoncle was now laughing with him. At this Mouret, delighted, stopped in order to shout to the porters:
‘That’s very good, lads! A quick sweep, and it’ll look splendid!’
But, turning round, he caught sight of Denise. He and Bourdoncle were opposite the ladieswear department, which he had just split in two by having the dresses and costumes taken up to the second floor, at the other end of the shop. Denise, the first to come down, was wide-eyed with astonishment at the new arrangements.
‘What’s this,’ she murmured; ‘are we moving?’
This surprise seemed to amuse Mouret, who adored these theatrical effects. Denise had been back at the Paradise since the beginning of February, and she had been agreeably surprised to find the staff polite, almost respectful. Madame Aurélie especially was very kind; Marguerite and Clara seemed resigned; even old Jouve was obsequious in a rather embarrassed way, as if he wanted to wipe out the unpleasant memory of the past. It sufficed that Mouret had said a few words; everyone was whispering, watching her as they did so. In the midst of this universal friendliness, the only things which hurt her were Deloche’s curious sadness, and Pauline’s inexplicable smiles.
Meanwhile, Mouret was still looking at her with delight:
‘What is it you’re looking for, Mademoiselle Baudu?’ he asked at last.
Denise had not noticed him. She blushed slightly. Since her return he had taken an interest in her, and this touched her very much. Without her knowing why, Pauline had given her a full account of the governor’s affair with Clara: where he saw her, what he paid her; and she often returned to the subject, even adding that he had another mistress, that Madame Desforges who was well known to everyone in the shop. These stories upset Denise, and in his presence she was again filled with all the fears she had had in the past, an uneasiness in which her gratitude struggled against her anger.
‘It’s all this moving around,’ she murmured.
Then Mouret came closer and said in a lower voice:
‘This evening, after the sale, will you come and see me in my office? I want to speak to you.’
Quite agitated, she nodded without saying a word, and went into the department where the other salesgirls were arriving. But Bourdoncle had overheard Mouret, and was watching him with a smile. He even ventured to say, when they were alone:
‘That girl again! Be careful, it’ll end up by getting serious!’
Mouret sharply defended himself, hiding his emotion beneath an air of casual superiority.
‘Don’t worry, it’s just fun! The woman who can catch me isn’t yet born, my dear chap!’
As the shop was opening at last, he rushed off to give a final glance at the various departments. Bourdoncle shook his head. That girl Denise, so simple and gentle, was beginning to worry him. He had defeated her once already by brutally dismissing her. But here she was again, and he was treating her now as a serious enemy, saying nothing, but once more biding his time.
He caught up with Mouret, who was downstairs in the Saint-Augustin Hall opposite the entrance, shouting:
‘Didn’t you hear what I said? I said that the blue parasols were to be put round the edge … I want all that redone, and be quick about it!’
He was deaf to all arguments, and a team of porters had to rearrange the display of parasols. Seeing the customers arriving, he even had the doors closed for a moment, declaring that he would rather not open at all than leave the blue parasols in the centre. It ruined his composition. Those with a reputation as window-dressers, Hutin, Mignot, and several others, came to have a look, craning their necks; but they pretended not to understand what he was trying to do, for they belonged to a different school.
Finally the doors were opened again, and the crowd streamed in. From the beginning, even before the shop was full, there was such a crush in the entrance hall that the police had to be called in to keep people moving along on the pavement. Mouret’s calculations had been right: all the housewives, a serried band of shopkeepers’ and workmen’s wives, were assaulting the bargains and remnants, which were displayed right into the street. Outstretched hands were continually feeling the materials hanging at the entrance, a calico at thirty-five centimes, a wool and cotton grey material at forty-five centimes, and above all an Orleans cloth at thirty-eight centimes which was playing havoc with the poorer purses. There was much elbowing, a feverish scrimmage round the racks and baskets in which piles of goods at reduced prices—lace at ten centimes, ribbons at twenty-five centimes, garters at fifteen, gloves, petticoats, ties, cotton socks and stockings—were collapsing and disappearing, as if devoured by the voracious crowd. In spite of the cold weather, the assistants who were selling to the crowd on the pavement could not serve fast enough. A fat woman screamed. Two little girls nearly suffocated.
The crush increased as the morning wore on. Towards one o’clock queues were being formed, and the street was barricaded as if there were a riot. Just at that moment, as Madame de Boves and her daughter Blanche were standing hesitantly on the opposite pavement, they were approached by Madame Marty, who was likewise accompanied by her daughter Valentine.
‘What a crowd, eh?’ said Madame de Boves. ‘They’re killing each other inside. I shouldn’t have come; I was in bed, but I got up for a breath of fresh air.’
‘It’s the same with me’, the other declared, ‘I promised my husband to go and see his sister in Montmartre. Then, as I was passing, I remembered I needed a piece of braid; I might as well buy it here as anywhere else, don’t you think? Oh! I shan’t spend a penny! I don’t need anything, anyway.’
However, they had not taken their eyes off the door, caught up and carried away by the strength of the crowd.
‘No, no,
I’m not going in, I’m frightened,’ murmured Madame de Boves. ‘Let’s go, Blanche, or we’ll be crushed to death.’
But her voice was faltering, and she was gradually giving way to the desire to follow everyone else inside; her fear was melting away in the irresistible lure of the crush. Madame Marty had also given way. She was repeating:
‘Hold my dress, Valentine … My goodness! I’ve never seen anything like this. You’re just carried along. What’s it going to be like inside!’
Caught in the current, the ladies were no longer able to turn back. As rivers draw together the stray waters of a valley, so it seemed that the stream of customers, flowing through the entrance hall, was drinking in the passers-by from the street, sucking in the population from the four corners of Paris. They were advancing very slowly, jammed so tightly that they could hardly breathe, held upright by shoulders and stomachs, whose flabby warmth they could feel; and their satisfied desire revelled in this painful approach, which inflamed their curiosity even more. There was a pell-mell of ladies dressed in silk, tradesmen’s wives in shabby dresses, hatless girls, all of them excited and carried away by the same passion. A few men, swamped by all these ample bosoms, were casting anxious glances around them. A nurse, in the thick of the crowd, was holding her baby high in the air, and it was laughing with delight. Only one of them, a skinny woman, lost her temper, shouting out abuse, and accusing a woman next to her of digging her elbows into her.
‘I think I might lose my petticoat in this crowd,’ Madame de Boves was repeating.
Silent, her face still fresh from the air outside, Madame Marty was craning her neck above the heads to see, before the others, the depths of the shop stretching into the distance. The pupils of her grey eyes were as small as those of a cat coming in out of the daylight; and she had the fresh complexion and clear gaze of someone who had just woken up.
‘Ah! At last!’ she said, letting out a sigh.
The ladies had just extricated themselves. They were in the Saint-Augustin Hall, and were most surprised to find it almost empty. But a feeling of well-being was stealing over them; they felt they were entering spring after leaving the winter of the street. Whereas outside the icy wind of sleet storms was blowing, in the galleries of the Paradise the warm summer months had already arrived, with the light materials, the flowery brilliance of soft shades, and the rustic gaiety of summer dresses and parasols.
‘Just look!’ cried Madame de Boves, brought to a standstill and gazing upwards.
It was the display of parasols. Wide open and rounded like shields, they covered the hall from the glazed ceiling to the varnished oak mouldings. They formed festoons round the arcades of the upper storeys; they hung down in garlands along the pillars; they ran in close lines along the balustrades of the galleries, and even on the banisters of the staircases; symmetrically arranged everywhere, speckling the walls with red, green, and yellow, they seemed like great Venetian lanterns, lit for some colossal entertainment. In the corners there were complicated patterns, stars made of parasols at ninety-five centimes, and their light shades—pale blue, creamy white, soft pink—were burning with the gentleness of a night-light; while above, huge Japanese sunshades covered with golden cranes flying across a purple sky were blazing with glints of fire.
Madame Marty tried to think of a phrase to express her delight, and could only exclaim:
‘It’s enchanting!’
Then, trying to find her way, she said:
‘Now, let’s see, the braid is in the haberdashery … I’ll just buy my braid, and then I’ll be off.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Madame de Boves. ‘We’ll just walk through the shop, and nothing more, won’t we, Blanche?’
But the ladies had hardly stepped away from the door before they were lost. They turned to the left; and, as the haberdashery had been moved, they found themselves surrounded by ruches, then by head-dresses. It was very warm under the covered galleries; the heat was that of a hothouse, moist and close, laden with the insipid smell of the materials; it muffled the trampling feet of the crowd. Then they went back to the entrance, where a stream of people on their way out was beginning to form, an interminable procession of women and children, above whom there floated a cloud of red balloons. Forty thousand balloons had been prepared; there were boys specially detailed to distribute them. To see the customers who were leaving, one would have thought that in the air above them there was a flight of enormous soap bubbles, on the end of invisible strings, reflecting the fire of the sunshades. The whole shop was lit up by them.
‘What a crowd,’ declared Madame de Boves. ‘You don’t know where you are any more.’
However, the ladies could not stay in the eddy by the doorway, right in the crush of the entrance and exit. Fortunately, Jouve came to their assistance. He was standing in the entrance hall, solemn-looking and attentive, staring at every woman who passed. Specially charged with responsibility for internal security, he was on the look-out for thieves, and in particular would follow pregnant women, when the feverish look in their eyes made him suspicious.
‘The haberdashery, ladies?’ he said obligingly. ‘Turn to the left, look, over there, behind the hosiery.’
Madame de Boves thanked him. But Madame Marty, on turning round, had found that her daughter Valentine was no longer with her. She was beginning to be alarmed when she caught sight of her, already in the distance at the end of the Saint-Augustin Hall, deeply absorbed in front of an auction table, on which there were piles of women’s scarves at ninety-five centimes. Mouret employed the auctioneering method of selling goods, by which customers were caught and robbed of their money as they passed; for he used any kind of advertisement, laughing at the discretion of some of his colleagues, who thought that the goods should speak for themselves. Special salesmen, idle Parisians with the gift of the gab, got rid of considerable quantities of small, trashy articles in this way.
‘Oh! Mamma!’ murmured Valentine. ‘Just look at these scarves. They’ve got an embroidered bird on the corner.’
The salesman was going through his patter, swearing that the scarf was all silk, that the manufacturer had gone bankrupt, and that they would never come across such a bargain again.
‘Ninety-five centimes, can it be true?’ said Madame Marty, captivated like her daughter. ‘Well, I could take two of them, that won’t ruin us!’
Madame de Boves remained disdainful. She detested this type of selling; a salesman who called out to her put her to flight. Madame Marty was surprised; she did not understand this nervous horror of the salesman’s patter, for her temperament was quite different; she was one of those women who are happy to be taken by force, to bathe in the caress of a public proposition, and have the pleasure of feeling everything with their hands, wasting their time in useless words.
‘Now,’ she resumed, ‘let’s hurry and get my braid … I don’t even want to see anything else.’
However, as she was going through the silk scarves and glove departments, her will weakened once more. There, in the diffused light, stood a bright, gaily coloured display which made a delightful effect. The counters, symmetrically arranged, looked like flower-beds, transforming the hall into a formal garden, smiling with a range of soft flower tones. Spread out on the wooden counter, falling from overflowing shelves, and in boxes which had been torn open, a harvest of silk scarves displayed the brilliant red of geraniums, the milky white of petunias, the golden yellow of chrysanthemums, the sky blue of verbena; and higher up, entwined on brass stems, there was another mass of blossom—fichus strewn about, ribbons unrolled, a dazzling strand extending and twisting up round the pillars, and multiplying in the mirrors. But what most attracted the crowd was a Swiss chalet in the glove department, made entirely of gloves: it was Mignot’s masterpiece, and had taken two days to arrange. First of all, black gloves formed the ground floor; then came straw-coloured, greyish-green, and burgundy gloves, forming part of the decoration, bordering the windows, sketching in the balconies, rep
lacing tiles.
‘What does madam require?’ asked Mignot, seeing Madame Marty rooted in front of the chalet. ‘Here are some suede gloves at one franc seventy-five, the finest quality …’
He was an extremely persistent salesman, calling out to passing customers from the far end of his counter, pestering them with his politeness. As she shook her head in refusal, he went on:
‘Tyrolean gloves at one franc twenty-five … Children’s gloves from Turin, embroidered gloves in all colours …’
‘No, thank you, I don’t want anything,’ Madame Marty declared.
But, feeling that her voice was softening, he attacked her even more vigorously by holding the embroidered gloves in front of her; she was helpless to resist, and bought a pair. Then, as Madame de Boves was watching her with a smile, she blushed.
‘I am a child, aren’t I? If I don’t hurry up and get my braid and leave, I’m lost!’
Unfortunately, there was such a crush in the haberdashery department that she could not get served. They had both been waiting for ten minutes and were beginning to get annoyed, when an encounter with Madame Bourdelais and her three children took up their attention. Madame Bourdelais explained, with the calm manner of a pretty but practical woman, that she had wanted to show the shop to the children. Madeleine was ten, Edmond eight, and Lucien four. They were laughing with delight; it was a cheap outing they had been promised for a long time.