Complete Works of Emile Zola (750 page)

She had given Jean four thousand francs, half of her savings, to enable him to set up housekeeping. The younger one cost her a great deal for schooling, all her money went for them, as in former days. They were her sole reason for living and working, for she had again declared she would never marry.

“Well, here are the things,” resumed Jean. “In the first place, there’s a cloak in this parcel that Therese—”

But he stopped, and Denise, on turning round to see what had frightened him, perceived Mouret behind them. For a moment he had stood looking at her in her motherly attitude between the two big boys, scolding and embracing them, turning them round as mothers do babies when changing their clothes. Bourdoncle had remained on one side, appearing to be interested in the business, but he did not lose sight of this little scene.

“They are your brothers, are they not?” asked Mouret, after a silence.

He had the icy tone and rigid attitude, which he now assumed with her. Denise herself made an effort to remain cold and unconcerned. Her smile died away, and she replied: “Yes, sir. I’ve married off the eldest, and his wife has sent him for some purchases.”

Mouret continued looking at the three of them. At last he said: “The youngest has grown very much. I recognize him, I remember having seen him in the Tuileries Gardens one evening with you.”

And his voice, which was becoming moderate, slightly trembled. She, suffocating, bent down, pretending to arrange Pépé’s belt. The two brothers, who had turned scarlet, stood smiling on their sister’s master.

“They’re very much like you,” said the latter.

“Oh!” exclaimed she, “they’re much handsomer than I am!”

For a moment he seemed to be comparing their faces. How she loved them! And he walked a step or two; then returned and whispered in her ear: “Come to my office after business, I want to speak to you before you go away.”

This time Mouret went off and continued his inspection. The battle was once more raging within him, for the appointment he had given caused him a sort of irritation. To what idea had he yielded on seeing her with her brothers? It was maddening to think he could no longer find the strength to assert his will. However, he could settle it by saying a word of adieu. Bourdoncle, who had rejoined him, seemed less anxious, though he was still examining him with stealthy glances.

Meanwhile, Denise had returned to Madame Bourdelais. “How are you getting on with the mantle, madame?”

“Oh, very well. I’ve spent enough for one day. These little ones are ruining me!”

Denise now being able to slip away, went and listened to Jean’s explanations, then accompanied him to the various counters, where he would certainly have lost his head without her. First came the mantle, which Therese wished to change for a white cloth cloak, same size, same shape. And the young girl, having taken the parcel, went up to the ready-made department, followed by her two brothers.

The department had laid out its light colored garments, summer jackets and mantillas, of light silk and fancy woollens. But there was little doing here, the customers were but few and far between. Nearly all the young ladies were new-comers. Clara had disappeared a month before, some said she had eloped with the husband of one of the saleswomen, others that she had gone on the streets. As for Marguerite, she was at last about to take the management of the little shop at Grenoble, where her cousin was waiting for her. Madame Aurélie remained immutable, in the round cuirass of her silk dress, with her imperial mask which retained the yellowish puffiness of an antique marble. Her son Albert’s bad conduct was a source of great trouble to her, and she would have retired into the country had it not been for the inroads made on the family savings by this scapegrace, whose terrible extravagance threatened to swallow up piece by piece their Rigolles property. It was a sort of punishment for their home broken up, for the mother had resumed her little excursions with her lady friends, and the father on his side continued his musical performances. Bourdoncle was already looking upon Madame Aurélie with a discontented air, surprised that she had not the tact to resign; too old for business! the knell was about to sound which would sweep away the Lhomme dynasty.

“Ah! it’s you,” said she to Denise, with an exaggerated amiability. “You want this cloak changed, eh? Certainly, at once. Ah! there are your brothers; getting quite men, I declare!”

In spite of her pride, she would have gone on her knees to pay her court to the young girl. Nothing else was being talked of in her department, as in the others, but Denise’s departure; and the first-hand was quite ill over it, for she had been reckoning on the protection of her former saleswoman. She lowered her voice: “They say you’re going to leave us. Really, it isn’t possible?”

“But it is, though,” replied Denise.

Marguerite was listening. Since her marriage had been decided on, she had marched about with her putty-looking face, assuming more disdainful airs than ever. She came up saying: “Yon are quite right. Self-respect above everything, I say. Allow me to bid you adieu, my dear.”

Some customers arriving at that moment, Madame Aurélie requested her, in a harsh voice, to attend to business. Then, as Denise was taking the cloak to effect the “return” herself, she protested, and called an auxiliary. This, again, was an innovation suggested to Mouret by the young girl — persons charged with carrying the articles, which relieved the saleswomen of a great burden.

“Go with Mademoiselle Denise,” said the first-hand, giving her the cloak. Then, returning to Denise: “Pray consider well. We are all heart-broken at your leaving.”

Jean and Pépé, who were waiting, smiling amidst this overflowing crowd of women, followed their sister. They now had to go to the underlinen department, to get four chemises like the half-dozen that Therese had bought on the Saturday. But there, where the exhibition of white goods was snowing down from every shelf, they were almost stifled, and found it very difficult to get past.

In the first place, at the stay counter a little scene was causing a crowd to collect. Madame Boutarel, who had arrived in Paris this time with her husband and daughter, had been wandering all about the shop since the morning collecting an outfit for the young lady, who was about to be married. The father was consulted every moment, and they never appeared likely to finish. At last the family had just stranded here; and whilst the young lady was absorbed in a profound study of some drawers, the mother had disappeared, having cast her coquettish eyes on a delicious pair of stays. When Monsieur Boutarel, a big, full-blooded man, left his daughter, bewildered, to go and look for his wife, he at last found her in a fitting-room, at the door of which he was politely invited to take a seat. These rooms were like narrow cells, glazed with ground glass, where the men, and even the husbands, were not allowed to enter, by an exaggerated sentiment of propriety on the part of the directors. Saleswomen came out and went in again quickly, allowing those outside to divine, by the rapid closing of the door, visions of ladies in their petticoats, with bare arms and shoulders — stout women with white flesh, and thin ones with flesh the color of old ivory. A row of men were waiting outside, seated on arm-chairs, and looking very weary. Monsieur Boutarel, when he understood, got really angry, crying out that he wanted his wife, that he insisted on knowing what was going on inside, that he certainly would not allow her to undress without him. It was in vain that they tried to calm him; he seemed to think there were some very queer things going on inside. Madame Boutarel was obliged to come out, to the delight of the crowd, who were discussing and laughing over the affair.

Denise and her brothers were at last able to get past. Every article of female linen, all those white under-things that are usually concealed, were here displayed, in a suite of rooms, classed in various departments. The corsets and dress-improvers occupied one counter, there were the stitched corsets, the Duchesse, the cuirass, and, above all, the white silk corsets, dove-tailed with colors, forming for this day a special display; an army of dummies without heads or legs, nothing but the bust, dolls’ breasts flattened under the silk, and close by, on other dummies, were horse-hair and other dress improvers, prolonging these broomsticks into enormous, distended croups, of which the profile assumed a ludicrous unbecomingness. But afterwards commenced the gallant dishabille, a dishabille which strewed the vast rooms, as if an army of lovely girls had undressed themselves from department to department, down to the very satin of their skin. Here were articles of fine linen, white cuffs and cravats, white fichus and collars, an infinite variety of light gewgaws, a white froth which escaped from the drawers and ascended like so much snow. There were jackets, little bodices, morning dresses and peignoirs, linen, nansouck, lace, long white garments, roomy and thin, which spoke of the lounging in a lazy morning after a night of tenderness. Then appeared the under-garments, falling one by one; the white petticoats of all lengths, the petticoat that clings to the knees, and the long petticoat with which the gay ladies sweep the pavement, a rising sea of petticoats, in which the legs were drowned; cotton, linen, and cambric drawers, large white drawers in which a man could dance; lastly, the chemises, buttoned at the neck for the night, or displaying the bosom in the day, simply supported by narrow shoulder-straps; chemises in all materials, common calico, Irish linen, cambric, the last white veil slipping from the panting bosom and hips.

And, at the outfitting counter, there was an indiscreet unpacking, women turned round and viewed on all sides, from the small housewife with her common calicoes, to the rich lady drowned in laces, an alcove publicly open, of which, the concealed luxury, the plaitings, the embroideries, the Valenciennes lace, became a sort of sexual depravation, as it developed into costly fantasies. Woman was dressing herself again, the white wave of this fall of linen was returning again to the shivering mystery of the petticoats, the chemise stiffened by the fingers of the workwomen, the frigid drawers retaining the creases of the box, all this cambric and muslin, dead, scattered over the counters, thrown about, heaped up, was going to become living, with the life of the flesh, odorous and warm with the odor of love, a white cloud become sacred, bathed in night, and of which the least flutter, the pink of a knee disclosed through the whiteness, ravaged the world. Then there was another room devoted to the baby linen, where the voluptuous snowy whiteness of woman’s clothing developed into the chaste whiteness of the infant: an innocence, a joy, the young wife become a mother, flannel garments, chemises and caps large as doll’s things, baptismal dresses, cashmere pelisses, the white down of birth, like a fine shower of white feathers.

“They are embroidered chemises,” said Jean, who was delighted with this display, this rising tide of feminine attire into which he was plunging.

Pauline ran up at once, when she perceived Denise; and before even asking what she wanted, began to talk in a low tone, stirred up by the rumors circulating in the shop. In her department, two saleswomen had even got quarrelling, one affirming and the other denying her departure.

“You’ll stay with us, I’ll stake my life. What would become of me?” And as Denise replied that she intended to leave the next day. “No, no, you think so, but I know better. You must appoint me second-hand, now that I’ve got a baby. Baugé is reckoning on it, my dear.”

Pauline smiled with an air of conviction. She then gave the six chemises; and, Jean having said that he was now going to the handkerchief counter, she called an auxiliary to carry the chemises and the jacket left by the auxiliary from the readymade department. The girl who happened to answer was Mademoiselle de Fontenailles, recently married to Joseph. She had just obtained this menial situation as a great favor, and she wore a long black blouse, marked on the shoulder with a number in yellow wool.

“Follow this young lady,” said Pauline. Then returning, and again lowering her voice: “It’s understood that I am to be appointed second-hand, eh?”

Denise, troubled, defended herself; but at last promised, with a laugh, joking in her turn. And she went away, going down with Jean and Pépé, and followed by the auxiliary. On the ground-floor, they fell into the woollen department, a corner of a gallery entirely hung with white swanskin cloth and white flannel. Liénard, whom his father had vainly recalled to Angers, was talking to the handsome Mignot, now a traveler, and who had boldly reappeared at The Ladies’ Paradise. No doubt they were speaking of Denise, for they both stopped talking to bow to her with a ceremonious air. In fact, as she went along through the departments the salesmen appeared full of emotion and bent their heads before her, uncertain of what she might be the next day. They whispered, thought she looked triumphant, and the betting was again altered; they began to risk bottles of wine, etc., over the event. She had gone through the linen gallery, in order to get to the handkerchief counter, which was at the further end. They saw nothing but white goods: cottons, madapolams, muslins, etc.; then came the linen, in enormous piles, ranged in alternate pieces like blocks of stone, stout linen, fine linen, of all sizes, white and unbleached, pure flax, whitened in the sun; then the same thing commenced once more, there were departments for each sort of linen: house linen, table linen, kitchen linen, a continual fall of white goods, sheets, pillow-cases, innumerable styles of napkins, aprons, and dusters. And the bowing continued, they made way for Denise to pass, Baugé had rushed out to smile on her, as the good fairy of the house. At last, after crossing the counterpane department, a room hung with white banners, she arrived at the handkerchief counter, the ingenious decoration of which delighted the crowd; there were nothing but white columns, white pyramids, white castles, a complicated architecture, solely composed of handkerchiefs, cambric, Irish linen, China silk, marked, embroidered by hand, trimmed with lace, hemstitched, and woven with vignettes, an entire city, built of white bricks, of infinite variety, standing out in a mirage against an Eastern sky, warmed to a white heat.