THE LADIES' PARADISE. Ðмиль ЗолÑ
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him The Ladies’ Paradise as a marriage portion.
“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, that very building! One morning, when visiting the works, she fell down 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 foundation of that house.
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 the morning, was caused perhaps by the presence of this woman’s blood, which she fancied she could see 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 shrugged his shoulders, disdaining these old women’s tales, and resumed his story, explaining the situation commercially. The Ladies’ Paradise was founded in 1822 by two brothers, named Deleuze. On the death of the elder, his daughter, Caroline, married the son of a linen manufacturer, Charles Hédouin; and, later on, becoming a widow, she married Mouret. She thus brought him a half share of the business. Three months after the marriage, the second brother Deleuze died childless; so that when Caroline met her death, Mouret became sole heir, sole proprietor of The Ladies’ Paradise. Wonderful luck!
“A sharp fellow, a dangerous busybody, who will overthrow the whole neighborhood if allowed to!” continued Baudu. “I fancy that Caroline, a rather romantic woman, must have been carried away by the gentleman’s extravagant ideas. 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 continued to grow—extending in such a way that it now threatens to swallow us all up!”
He was addressing Denise, but was really speaking more to himself, feeling a feverish longing to go over this history which haunted him continually. At home he was always angry, always violent, clenching his fists as if longing to go for somebody. Madame Baudu ceased to interfere, sitting motionless on her chair; Geneviève and Colomban, their eyes cast down, were picking up and eating the crumbs off the table, just for the sake of something to do. It was so warm, so stuffy in the small room, that Pépé was sleeping with his head on the table, and even Jean’s eyes were closing.
“Wait a bit!” resumed Baudu, seized with a sudden fit of anger, “such jokers always go to smash! Mouret is hard-pushed just now; I know that for a fact. He’s been forced to spend all his savings on his mania for extensions and advertisements. Moreover, in order to raise money, he has induced most of his shop-people to invest all they possess with him. So that he hasn’t a sou to help himself with now; and, unless a miracle be worked, and he treble his sales, as he hopes to do, you’ll see what a crash there’ll be! Ah! I’m not ill-natured, but that day I’ll illuminate my shop-front, on my word of honor!”
And he went on in a revengeful voice; one would have thought that the fall of The Ladies’ Paradise was to restore the dignity and prestige of compromised business. Had anyone ever seen such a thing? A draper’s shop selling everything! Why not call it a bazaar at once? And the employees! a nice set they were too—a lot of puppies, who did their work like porters at a railway station, treating goods and customers like so many parcels; leaving the shop or getting the sack at a moment’s notice. No affection, no manners, no taste! And all at once he quoted Colomban as an example of a good tradesman, brought up in the old school, knowing how long it took to learn all the cunning and tricks of the trade. The art was not to sell a large quantity, but to sell dear. Colomban could say how he had been treated, carefully looked after, his washing and mending done, nursed in illness, considered as one of the family—loved, in fact!
“Of course,” repeated Colomban, after every statement the governor made.
“Ah, you’re the last of the old stock,” Baudu ended by declaring. “After you’re gone there’ll be none left. You are my sole consolation, for if they call all this sort of thing business I give up, I would rather clear out.”
Geneviève, her head on one side, as if her thick hair were too heavy for her pale forehead, was watching the smiling shopman; and in her look there was a suspicion, a wish to see whether Colomban, stricken with remorse, would not blush at all this praise. But, like a fellow up to every trick of the old trade, he preserved his quiet manner, his good-natured and cunning look. However, Baudu still went on, louder than ever, condemning the people opposite, calling them a pack of savages, murdering each other in their struggle for existence, destroying all family ties. And he mentioned some country neighbors, the Lhommes—mother, father, and son—all employed in the infernal shop, people without any home life, always out, leading a comfortless, savage existence, never dining at home except on Sunday, feeding all the week at restaurants, hotels, anywhere. Certainly his dining room wasn’t too large nor too well-lighted; but it was part of their home, and the family had grown up affectionately about the domestic hearth. Whilst speaking his eyes wandered about the room; and he shuddered at the unavowed idea that the savages might one day, if they succeeded in ruining his trade, turn him out of this house where he was so comfortable with his wife and child. Notwithstanding the assurance with which he predicted the utter downfall of his rivals, he was really terrified, feeling that the neighborhood was being gradually invaded and devoured.
“I don’t want to disgust you,” resumed he, trying to calm himself; “if you think it to your interest to go there, I shall be the first to say, “go.””
“I am sure of that, uncle,” murmured Denise, bewildered, all this excitement rendering her more and more desirous of entering The Ladies’ Paradise.
He had put his elbows on the table, and was staring at her so hard that she felt uneasy. “But look here,” resumed he; “you who know the business, do you think it right that a simple draper’s shop should sell everything? Formerly, when trade was trade, drapers sold nothing but drapery. Now they are doing their best to snap up every branch and ruin their neighbors. The whole neighborhood complains of it, for every small tradesman is beginning to suffer terribly. This Mouret is ruining them. Bédoré and his sister, who keep the hosiery shop in the Rue Gaillon, have already lost half their customers; Mademoiselle Tatin, at the underlinen warehouse in the Passage Choiseul, has been obliged to lower her prices, to be able to sell at all. And the effects of this scourge, this pest, are felt as far as the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, where I hear that Vanpouille Brothers, the furriers, cannot hold out much longer. Drapers selling fur goods—what a farce! another of Mouret’s ideas!”
“And gloves,” added Madame Baudu; “isn’t it monstrous? He has even dared to add a glove department! Yesterday, as I was going along the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, I saw Quinette, the glover, at his door, looking so downcast that I hadn’t the heart to ask him how business was going.”
“And umbrellas,” resumed Baudu; “that’s the climax! Bourras feels sure that Mouret simply wants to ruin him; for, in short, where’s the rhyme between umbrellas and drapery? But Bourras is firm on his legs, and won’t allow himself to be beggared. We shall see some fun one of these days.”
He spoke of other tradesmen, passing the whole neigbourhood in review. Now and again he let slip a confession. If Vinçard wanted to sell it was time for the rest to pack up, for Vinçard was like the rats who leave a house when it threatens to fall in. Then, immediately after, he contradicted himself, alluded to an alliance, an understanding between the small tradesmen in order to fight the colossus. He hesitated an instant before speaking of himself, his hands shaking, and his mouth twitching in a nervous manner. At last he made up his mind.
“As for myself, I can’t complain as yet. Of course he has done me harm, the scoundrel! But up to the present he only keeps ladies’ cloths, light stuffs for dresses and heavier goods for mantles. People still come to me for men’s goods, velvets for shooting suits, cloths for liveries, without speaking of flannels and serges, of which I defy him to show as good an assortment. But he thinks to annoy me by planting his cloth department right in front of my door. You’ve seen his display,