‘I’m going to buy a red parasol, they’re such fun,’ said Madame Marty suddenly, stamping with impatience at waiting there doing nothing.
She chose one at fourteen francs fifty. Madame Bourdelais, who watched the purchase with a look of disapproval, said to her in a friendly way:
‘You shouldn’t be in such a hurry. In a month’s time you could have got it for ten francs … They won’t catch me like that!’
And she explained the theory of good housekeeping she had developed. As the shops were lowering their prices, one only had to wait. She did not want to be exploited by them; it was she who took advantage of their real bargains. There was even a touch of malice in her battle with the shops; she boasted that she had never let them make a penny’s profit.
‘Well,’ she ended by saying, ‘I’ve promised to show my little ones some pictures, upstairs in the lounge … Come up with me, you’ve got plenty of time.’
At that the braid was forgotten; Madame Marty gave in at once, whereas Madame de Boves refused, preferring to walk round the ground floor first. In any case, the ladies hoped that they would meet again upstairs. Madame Bourdelais was looking for a staircase when she caught sight of one of the lifts; and she pushed the children into it, to make the outing complete. Madame Marty and Valentine also entered the narrow cage, in which people were squeezed tightly together; but the mirrors, the velvet seats, and the decorated brass door took up their attention to such an extent that they arrived on the first floor without even having felt the gentle gliding of the machine. In any case, another treat was awaiting them, as soon as they went into the lace gallery. As they passed the buffet, Madame Bourdelais did not neglect to gorge her little family on fruit cordial. The room was square, with a large marble counter; at either end silver-plated fountains flowed with a thin trickle of water; behind, on small shelves, rows of bottles were lined up. Three waiters were continually wiping and filling glasses. To control the thirsty customers it had been necessary to form a queue, as at theatre doors, by erecting a barrier covered with velvet. There was a tremendous crush. Some people, losing all shame before the free refreshments, were making themselves ill.
‘Well! Where are they?’ exclaimed Madame Bourdelais when she had extricated herself from the crowd, after wiping the children’s faces with her handkerchief.
Then she caught sight of Madame Marty and Valentine at the end of another gallery, a long way off. They were both still buying, drowned beneath an overflow of petticoats. It was hopeless; mother and daughter disappeared, swept away by a fever of spending.
When she finally arrived in the reading- and writing-room, Madame Bourdelais installed Madeleine, Edmond, and Lucien at the large table; then she helped herself to some photograph albums from a bookcase and took them over to them. The dome of the long room was laden with gilding; at either end monumental fireplaces faced each other; mediocre pictures, very ornately framed, covered the walls; and, between the pillars, in front of each of the arched bays opening on to the shop, were tall green plants in majolica pots. A crowd of silent people surrounded the table, which was littered with magazines and newspapers, and furnished with stationery and ink-pots. Ladies were removing their gloves, and writing letters on paper stamped with the name of the shop, which they crossed out with a stroke of the pen. A few men, lolling back in the armchairs, were reading newspapers. But many people were simply doing nothing: husbands waiting for wives who were wandering freely through the departments, young ladies discreetly looking out for their lovers, elderly parents deposited there as if in a cloakroom, to be picked up again when it was time to leave. This crowd, comfortably seated, was resting, glancing through the open bays into the depths of the galleries and halls, from which the distant murmur could be heard above the scratching of pens and the rustling of newspapers.
‘What! You’re here!’ said Madame Bourdelais. ‘I didn’t recognize you.’
Near the children, a lady was half hidden behind the pages of a magazine. It was Madame Guibal. She seemed annoyed by the encounter. But she recovered immediately, and said that she had come upstairs to sit down for a while in order to escape the crush. And when Madame Bourdelais asked her if she had come to make some purchases, she replied in her languid way, hiding behind her eyelids the ruthless egoism of her gaze:
‘Oh, no! On the contrary, I’ve come to return something. Yes, some door-curtains I’m not satisfied with … but there are so many people that I’m waiting until I can get near the department.’
She carried on talking, saying how convenient the ‘return’ system was; previously, she never used to buy anything, whereas now she occasionally yielded to temptation. In fact, she returned four articles out of five, and was beginning to be known in all the departments for the strange dealings which were suspected to lie behind the constant dissatisfaction which made her bring articles back one by one, after having kept them for several days. While she was speaking, she did not take her eyes off the doors of the reading-room; and she seemed relieved when Madame Bourdelais rejoined her children so as to explain the photographs to them. Almost at the same moment Monsieur de Boves and Paul de Vallagnosc came in. The Count, who was pretending to show the young man round the new parts of the shop, exchanged a quick glance with her; then she buried herself in her magazine again, as if she had not noticed him.
‘Hello, Paul!’ exclaimed a voice from behind the gentlemen.
It was Mouret, who was walking round in order to keep an eye on the various departments. They shook hands, and he asked at once:
‘Has Madame de Boves done us the honour of coming?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ the Count replied, ‘and she’s terribly sorry. She’s not well… But it’s nothing serious.’
Suddenly he pretended to catch sight of Madame Guibal. He made his escape and went up to her, holding his hat in his hand; the other two were content to greet her from a distance. She, too, pretended to be surprised. Paul had given a smile; he understood, at last, and he told Mouret in a low voice how he had met the Count in the Rue Richelieu and how the latter, having tried to shake him off, had in the end dragged him off to the Paradise under the pretext that one simply had to see it. For a year the lady had been extracting from the Count all the money and pleasure she could, never writing to him, but meeting him in public places, in churches, museums, or shops, to arrange further, private meetings.
‘I think they meet in a different hotel room each time,’ the young man murmured. ‘Not long ago, when he was on a tour of inspection, he wrote to his wife every other day from Blois, Libourne, and Tarbes;* and yet I’m positive I saw him going into a family boarding-house near the Batignolles …* Just look at him! Isn’t he handsome, standing there in front of her with all the decorum of a true official! That’s the old France for you, my friend, the old France!’
‘What about your marriage?’ asked Mouret.
Without taking his eyes off the Count, Paul replied that they were still waiting for his aunt to die. Then, with a triumphant air, he said:
‘There, did you see? He bent down, and slipped her an address. There, she’s taking it, with her most virtuous expression: she’s a terrible woman, that dainty redhead is, with her unconcerned air … Well, there are some fine goings-on in your shop!’
‘Oh!’ said Mouret smiling, ‘these ladies aren’t in my shop, they’re at home here!’
He went on to joke about it. Love, like swallows, brought luck to houses. Of course he knew all about the tarts who had their beat along the counters, and the ladies who accidentally met a friend there; but if they did not buy anything, they at least swelled the numbers; they warmed up the shop. While he was talking, he led his old schoolfellow along and made him stand on the threshold of the room, facing the great central gallery, its successive halls stretching out below them. Behind them, the reading-room retained its atmosphere of meditation, disturbed only by the scratching of pens and the rustling of newspapers. An old gentleman had fallen asleep over the Moniteur. Monsieur de Boves wa
s studying the pictures, with the obvious intention of losing his future son-in-law in the crowd. And, alone in the midst of the calm, Madame Bourdelais was amusing her children in a loud voice, as if in conquered territory.
‘You see, they’re at home here,’ repeated Mouret with a grand gesture towards the crowds of women with which the departments were almost bursting.
Just then Madame Desforges, who had nearly lost her coat in the crowd, at last came in and walked through the first hall. When she reached the main gallery, she looked up. It was like the concourse of a station, surrounded by the balustrades of the two upper storeys, intersected by hanging staircases, and with suspension bridges built across it. The iron staircases, with double spirals, opened out in bold curves, multiplying the landings; the iron bridges, thrown across the void, ran straight along, very high up; and beneath the pale light from the windows all this metal formed a delicate piece of architecture, a complicated lacework through which the daylight passed, the modern realization of a dream-palace, of a Babel-like accumulation of storeys in which halls opened out, offering glimpses of other storeys and other halls without end. In fact, iron was dominant everywhere; the young architect had had the honesty and courage not to disguise it under a coating of whitewash imitating stone or wood. Down below, so as not to outshine the merchandise, the decoration was sober, with large sections in one colour, in a neutral tint; then, as the metal framework ascended, the capitals of the columns became richer, the rivets formed rosettes, the corbels and brackets were loaded with sculpture; finally, at the top, there was a brilliant burst of green and red paint, in the midst of a wealth of gold, cascades of gold, a whole crop of gold, right up to the windows, the panes of which were enamelled and inlaid in gold. Under the covered galleries, the exposed brickwork of the counter-arches was also enamelled in bright colours. Mosaics and ceramics formed part of the decorations, brightening up the friezes, lighting up with their fresh tones the austerity of the whole; while the staircases, their banisters covered with red velvet, were decorated with a strip of carved, polished iron, which shone like a piece of steel armour.
Although she had already visited the new building, Madame Desforges stopped, struck by the tempestuous life which, that day, was animating the immense nave. Downstairs, all round her, the eddy of the crowd continued endlessly, its dual stream of entry and exit making itself felt as far as the silk department; the crowd was still very mixed, though the afternoon was adding a greater number of ladies to the shopkeepers and housewives; there were many women in mourning, wearing long veils; and the inevitable contingent of wet-nurses, shielding their babies with their arms. This sea of multi-coloured hats, of bare heads, both fair and dark, was flowing from one end of the gallery to the other, looking blurred and faded against the stunning brilliance of the materials. Wherever she looked Madame Desforges could see nothing but large price tickets with huge figures on them, garish spots standing out against the bright prints, the glossy silks, and the sombre woollens. Heads were half cut off from sight by piles of ribbons; a wall of flannel stood out like a promontory; on all sides the mirrors made the departments recede further into the distance, reflecting the displays together with patches of the public—faces in reverse, bits of shoulders and arms—while to the left and right sides galleries opened up further vistas, the snowy drifts of household linen, the dappled depths of the hosiery—lost in the distance, illuminated by a ray of light from some bay window, and where the crowd had become nothing but specks of human dust. Then, when Madame Desforges looked up, she saw, along the staircases, on the suspension bridges, round the balustrades of each storey, an unbroken, murmuring stream of people ascending, a whole multitude of people in the air, travelling through the fretwork of the enormous metal frame, silhouetted in black against the diffused light of the enamelled windows. Great gilded chandeliers hung from the ceiling; an awning of rugs, embroidered silks, and materials worked with gold was hanging down, draping the balustrades with brilliant banners; from one end to the other there were flights of lace, quivering muslin, triumphal wreaths of silk, apotheoses of half-dressed dummies; and above all this confusion, at the very top, the bedding department, as if suspended in the air, displayed little iron bedsteads with their mattresses, hung with white curtains, like a dormitory of schoolgirls sleeping in the midst of the trampling customers, who became rarer as the departments rose higher.
‘Does madam require some cheap garters?’ said a salesman to Madame Desforges, seeing her standing there. ‘All silk, one franc forty-five.’
She did not deign to reply. Around her the salesmen were yelping, becoming more and more animated. She wanted, however, to know where she was. Albert Lhomme’s cash-desk was on her left; he knew her by sight and, completely unhurried in the midst of the stream of invoices with which he was besieged, he took the liberty of giving her a pleasant smile; behind him, Joseph was struggling with the string-box, unable to parcel up the articles fast enough. Then she realized where she was; the silk department must be ahead of her. But it took her ten minutes to get there, for the crowd was growing all the time. Above her the red balloons at the end of their invisible strings had become even more numerous; they were piling up into crimson clouds, moving gently towards the doors, continuing to pour out into Paris; and when they were held by very small children with the string wound tightly round their little hands, she had to bend her head down beneath the flight of balloons.
‘What! It’s very bold of you to come here, madam,’ exclaimed Bouthemont gaily, as soon as he caught sight of Madame Desforges.
The manager of the silk department, who had been taken to her house by Mouret himself, now called on her occasionally for tea. She thought him common, but very pleasant, with a fine full-blooded temperament which she found surprising and amusing. What is more, two days earlier he had told her straight out about Mouret’s affair with Clara, without thinking, with the stupidity of a crude lad who loves a good laugh; and, stung with jealousy, hiding her wounded feelings under an air of disdain, she had come to seek out this girl, for he had simply said it was a young lady from the ladieswear department, refusing to name her.
‘Can we help you in any way?’ he resumed.
‘Of course, otherwise I wouldn’t have come … Do you have any silk for a matinée jacket?’
She hoped to extract the name of the girl from him, for she had been seized with an urge to see her. He immediately summoned Favier; and he started to chat with her again while waiting for the salesman, who was just finishing serving a customer, the ‘pretty lady’ as it happened, that beautiful blonde woman whom the whole department occasionally talked about, without knowing anything about her life or even her name. This time the pretty lady was in deep mourning. Ah, whom had she lost, her husband or her father? Certainly not her father, or she would have looked sadder. So she was not a tart then, she had a real husband. Unless, of course, she was in mourning for her mother? For a few minutes, despite the pressure of work, the department exchanged these various conjectures.
‘Hurry up! It’s intolerable!’ shouted Hutin to Favier, who was coming back from escorting his customer to the cash-desk. ‘When that lady’s here you take ages … As if she cared for you!’
‘I bet she couldn’t care as little for me as I care for her,’ replied the irritated salesman.
But Hutin threatened to report him to the management if he did not show more respect for the customers. He had become insufferable, peevishly severe, ever since the department had banded together to get him Robineau’s place. In fact, he was so unbearable, after all the promises of good comradeship with which he had previously curried favour with his colleagues, that they now secretly supported Favier against him.
‘Now then, don’t answer back,’ Hutin went on severely. ‘Monsieur Bouthemont’s asking for some foulard, the palest designs.’
In the middle of the department an exhibition of summer silks was illuminating the hall with the brilliancy of dawn, like the rising of a star amidst the most delicate
shades of daylight—pale pink, soft yellow, clear blue, a shimmering scarf of all the colours of the rainbow. There were foulards as fine as a cloud, surahs lighter than the down blown from trees, satiny Peking fabrics as soft as the skin of a Chinese virgin. And there were also pongees from Japan, tussores and corahs from India, not to mention light French silks—fine stripes, tiny checks, floral patterns, every design imaginable—which conjured up visions of ladies in furbelows walking on May mornings beneath great trees in a park.
‘I’ll take this one, the Louis XIV design with the bouquets of roses,’ said Madame Desforges at last.
While Favier was measuring it, she made a last attempt to get some information out of Bouthemont, who had remained near her.
‘I’m going up to the ladieswear department to look at the travel coats … Is she fair, the girl you were telling me about?’
The section-manager, who was becoming alarmed by her insistence, merely smiled. But, just at that moment, Denise happened to pass by. She had just handed over to Liénard, in the merinos, Madame Boutarel, the provincial lady who came to Paris twice a year to throw away at the Paradise the money she scraped together out of her housekeeping. And as Favier had already taken Madame Desforges’s foulard, Hutin, thinking to annoy him, stopped the girl as she went by.
‘There’s no need, this young lady will be very pleased to accompany madam.’
Denise, confused, naturally consented to take charge of the parcel and the invoice. She could not meet this young man face to face without feeling ashamed, as if he reminded her of some past indiscretion. Yet the sin had only been in her dreams.
‘Tell me,’ Madame Desforges asked Bouthemont in a very low voice, ‘isn’t this the girl who was so clumsy? He’s taken her back then? So she must be the heroine of the adventure!’