The Ladies' Paradise. Emile ZolaЧитать онлайн книгу.
said he, "I haven't yet made up my mind; give me time to think over it. We'll have another talk about it."
"As you like," replied Vinçard, concealing his disappointment under a smiling countenance. "My interest, you know, is not to sell; and I certainly shouldn't were it not for my rheumatics – "
Then stepping to the middle of the shop, he inquired: "What can I do for you, Monsieur Baudu?"
The draper, who had been slily listening, thereupon introduced Denise, telling Vinçard as much as he thought necessary of her story and adding that she had two years' country experience. "And as I heard you are wanting a good saleswoman – " he added.
But Vinçard, affecting extreme sorrow, cut him short: "How unfortunate!" said he. "I had, indeed, been looking for a saleswoman all this week; but I've just engaged one – not two hours ago."
A silence ensued. Denise seemed to be in consternation. Robineau, who was looking at her with interest, probably inspired with pity by her poverty-stricken appearance, ventured to remark: "I know they're wanting a young person at our place, in the mantle department."
At this Baudu could not restrain a fervent outburst: "At your place indeed! Never!"
Then he stopped short in embarrassment. Denise had turned very red; she would never dare to enter that great shop, and yet the idea of belonging to it filled her with pride.
"Why not?" asked Robineau, surprised. "It would be a good opening for the young lady. I advise her to go and see Madame Aurélie, the first-hand, to-morrow. The worst that can happen to her is to be refused."
The draper, to conceal his inward revolt, then began talking vaguely. He knew Madame Aurélie, or, at least, her husband, Lhomme, the cashier, a stout man, who had had his right arm crushed by an omnibus. Then suddenly turning to Denise, he added: "However, it's her business, it isn't mine. She can do as she likes."
And thereupon he went off, after wishing Gaujean and Robineau "good-day". Vinçard accompanied him as far as the door, reiterating his regrets. The girl meantime had remained in the middle of the shop, intimidated yet desirous of asking Robineau for further particulars. However she could not muster the courage to do so, but in her turn bowed, and simply said: "Thank you, sir."
On the way back, Baudu said nothing to his niece, but as if carried away by his reflections walked on very fast, forcing her to run in order to keep up with him. On reaching the Rue de la Michodière, he was about to enter his establishment when a neighbouring shopkeeper, standing at his door, called to him.
Denise stopped and waited.
"What is it, Père Bourras?" asked the draper.
Bourras was a tall old man, with a prophet's head, bearded and hairy, with piercing eyes shining from under bushy brows. He kept an umbrella and walking-stick shop, did repairs, and even carved handles, which had won for him an artistic celebrity in the neighbourhood. Denise glanced at the windows of his shop where the sticks and umbrellas were arranged in straight lines. But on raising her eyes she was astonished by the appearance of the house – it was an old hovel squeezed in between The Ladies' Paradise and a large Louis XIV. mansion; you could hardly conceive how it had sprung up in the narrow slit where its two low dumpy storeys displayed themselves. Had it not been for the support of the buildings on either side it must have fallen; the slates of its roof were old and rotten, and its two-windowed front was cracked and covered with stains, running down in long rusty lines to the worm-eaten sign-board over the shop.
"You know he's written to my landlord, offering to buy the house?" said Bourras, looking steadily at the draper with his fiery eyes.
Baudu became paler still, and bent his shoulders. There was a silence, during which the two men remained face to face, looking very serious.
"We must be prepared for anything," murmured Baudu at last.
Thereupon Bourras flew into a passion, shaking his hair and flowing beard while he shouted: "Let him buy the house, he'll have to pay four times the value for it! But I swear that as long as I live he shan't touch a stone of it. My lease has twelve years to run yet. We shall see! we shall see!"
It was a declaration of war. Bourras was looking towards The Ladies' Paradise, which neither of them had named. For a moment Baudu remained shaking his head in silence, and then crossed the street to his shop, his legs almost failing him as he repeated: "Ah! good Lord! ah! good Lord!"
Denise, who had listened, followed her uncle. Madame Baudu had just come back with Pépé, whom Madame Gras had agreed to receive at any time. Jean, however, had disappeared, and this made his sister anxious. When he returned with a flushed face, talking in an animated way of the boulevards, she looked at him with such a sad expression that he blushed with shame. Meantime their box had arrived, and it was arranged that they should sleep in the attic.
"Ah! By the way, how did you get on at Vinçard's?" inquired Madame Baudu.
The draper thereupon gave an account of his fruitless errand, adding that Denise had heard of a situation; and, pointing to The Ladies' Paradise with a scornful gesture, he exclaimed: "There – in there!"
The whole family felt hurt at the idea. The first dinner was at five o'clock. Denise and the two children sat down to it with Baudu, Geneviève, and Colomban. A single gas jet lighted and warmed the little dining-room which reeked with the smell of food. The meal passed off in silence, but at dessert Madame Baudu, who was restless, left the shop, and came and sat down behind Denise. And then the storm, kept back all day, broke out, one and all seeking to relieve their feelings by abusing the "monster".
"It's your business, you can do as you like," repeated Baudu. "We don't want to influence you. But if you only knew what sort of place it is – " And in broken sentences he commenced to relate the story of that Octave Mouret to whom The Paradise belonged. He had been wonderfully lucky! A fellow who had come up from the South of France with the smiling audacity of an adventurer, who had no sooner arrived in Paris than he had begun to distinguish himself by all sorts of disgraceful pranks, figuring most prominently in a matrimonial scandal, which was still the talk of the neighbourhood; and who, to crown all, had suddenly and mysteriously made the conquest of Madame Hédouin, who had brought him The Ladies' Paradise as a marriage portion.
"That poor Caroline!" interrupted Madame Baudu. "We were distantly related. If she had lived things would be different. She wouldn't have let them ruin us like this. And he's the man who killed her. Yes, with that very building! One morning, when she was visiting the works, she fell into a hole, and three days after she died. A fine, strong, healthy woman, who had never known what illness was! There's some of her blood in the foundations of that house."
So speaking she pointed to the establishment opposite with her pale and trembling hand. Denise, listening as to a fairy tale, slightly shuddered; the sense of fear which had mingled with the temptation she had felt since morning, was due, perhaps, to the presence of that woman's blood, which she fancied she could now detect in the red mortar of the basement.
"It seems as if it brought him good luck," added Madame Baudu, without mentioning Mouret by name.
But the draper, full of disdain for these old women's tales, shrugged his shoulders and resumed his story, explaining the situation commercially. The Ladies' Paradise had been founded in 1822 by two brothers, named Deleuze. On the death of the elder, his daughter, Caroline, had married the son of a linen manufacturer, Charles Hédouin; and, later on, becoming a widow, she had married Mouret. She thus brought him a half share in the business. Three months after the marriage, however, the second brother Deleuze died childless; so that when Caroline met her death, Mouret became sole heir, sole proprietor of The Ladies' Paradise. Yes, he had been wonderfully lucky!
"He's what they call a man of ideas, a dangerous busybody, who will overturn the whole neighbourhood if he's left to himself!" continued Baudu. "I fancy that Caroline, who was rather romantic also, must have been carried away by the gentleman's extravagant plans. In short, he persuaded her to buy the house on the left, then the one on the right; and he himself, on becoming his own master, bought two others; so that the establishment has kept on growing and growing to such a point that it now threatens to swallow us all up!"
He was