Émile Zola

“ She went and turned the winch, whose wheels gave out a plaintive cry whilst the sheets of iron slowly descended, like the heavy draperies of a curtain falling on the catastrophe of a fifth act. And when she went in again, after closing the little round door in the shutters, she found Madame Robineau still clasping her husband in her arms, in the vague half-light which came from the two stars cut in the sheet-iron. The ruined shop seemed to be gliding into nothingness, those two stars alone glittered on this sudden and brutal catastrophe of the streets of Paris. ”

“ A vague connection arose in his mind: the robbery perpetrated by that unfortunate woman, that last folly of the conquered customer laid low at the feet of the tempter, evoked the proud and avenging image of Denise, whose victorious heel he could feel upon his throat. He stopped at the top of the central staircase, and gazed for a long time into the immense nave, where his nation of women was swarming.
Six o'clock was about to strike, the daylight decreasing out-of-doors was gradually forsaking the covered galleries, already dim, and even waning in the halls which gloom was slowly invading. ”

“ Towards the Opera-house and the Bourse were rows of waiting vehicles, the harness of the horses still presenting reflections of bright light, the gleam of a lamp, the glitter of a silver chain. At each minute the cry of a messenger was heard, and a cab drew near, or a brougham came forth from the ranks, took up a customer and went off at a rapid trot. The rows of conveyances were now diminishing, six went off at a time, occupying the whole street from one side to the other, amidst the banging of doors, the snapping of whips, and the hum of the passers-by, who swarmed between the wheels. ”

“ But just at that moment Baudu came down. Bile had now given his yellow face a greenish hue, and his eyes were bloodshot. He was still walking with the muffled tread with which he had quitted the sick room, and murmured, as though he might be overheard upstairs, "She's asleep."
Then, thoroughly worn out, he sat down on a chair, mopping his forehead with a mechanical gesture and puffing like a man who has just finished some hard work. A pause ensued, but at last he said to Denise: "You'll see her presently. When she is sleeping, she seems to us to be all right again." ”

“ In the lace department the crush was increasing every minute. The great show of white was there triumphing in its most delicate and costly whiteness. Here was the supreme temptation, the goading of a mad desire, which bewildered all the women. The department had been turned into a white temple; tulles and guipures, falling from above, formed a white sky, one of those cloudy veils whose fine network pales the morning sun. Round the columns descended flounces of Malines and Valenciennes, white dancers' skirts, unfolding in a snowy shiver to the floor. ”

“ Geneviève gave him a long look, and then in her turn remarked: "When people understand each other, the rest comes naturally."
Their affection had sprung up in this gloomy nook of old Paris like a flower in a cellar. For ten years past she had known no one but him, living by his side, behind the same bales of cloth, amidst the darkness of the shop; and morning and evening they had found themselves elbow to elbow in the tiny dining-room, so damp and vault-like. ”

“ The gas was burning in the dining-room, although they were now in the long days of summer. Denise shivered slightly as she went in, chilled by the dampness oozing from the walls. She once more beheld the round table, the places laid on the American cloth, the window deriving its air and light from the dark and fetid back-yard. And all these things appeared to her to be gloomier than ever, and tearful like the shop.
"Father," said Geneviève, uncomfortable for Denise's sake, "shall I close the window? there's rather a bad smell." ”

“ And there was no longer any mistaking the noises which came from outside, the rolling of cabs, the banging of carriage-doors, all the increasing tumult of a growing crowd. Mouret felt that his machine was again setting to work beneath him, getting up steam and reviving to activity, from the pay-desks where gold was jingling, and the tables where messengers were hurriedly packing up goods, to the delivery-room in the basement, which was quickly filling with the parcels sent down to it, its subterraneous rumble seeming to shake the whole house. ”

“ Quite a battle was waged at the shop-counters, where woman was pitted against woman in a sharp rivalry of wealth and beauty. There was the sullen jealousy of the saleswomen towards the well-dressed customers, the ladies whose manners they tried to imitate, and there was a still stronger feeling on the part of the poorly-dressed customers, those of the lower middle-class, against the saleswomen, those girls arrayed in silk, from whom they would have liked to exact a servant's humility even in the serving of a half franc purchase. ”

“ Henriette observed with what pleasure Mouret shook hands with the new arrival. The latter bowed to the ladies, and glanced at the young man with that subtle expression which sometimes illumined his big Alsatian face.
"Always plunged in dress!" he murmured, with a smile; and like a friend of the house, he ventured to add: "There's a charming young person in the ante-room. Who is she?"
"Oh! nobody," replied Madame Desforges, in her ill-natured voice. "Only a shop-girl waiting to see me." ”

“ The song of the white seemed to soar upward in the flaming whiteness of an aurora. A white glimmer darted from the linen and calico department in the Monsigny Gallery, like the first bright streak which lights up the eastern sky; whilst along the Michodière Gallery, the mercery and the passementerie, the fancy-goods and the ribbons threw out reflections of distant hills—with the white flash of mother-of-pearl buttons, silvered bronzes and sparkling beads. ”

“ She considered life a matter of logic, good conduct, and courage.
Denise frequently questioned herself in this way. An old love story floated in her memory, the story of a sailor's betrothed whom her love guarded from all perils. At Valognes she had often hummed this sentimental ballad whilst gazing into the deserted street. Had she likewise some tender affection in her heart that she proved so brave? She still thought of Hutin, full of uneasiness. Morning and evening she saw him pass under her window. Now that he was second-hand he walked by himself, saluted with respect by the mere salesmen. ”

“ Well! she goes about with everybody, she laughs at you, and will never marry you."
He listened to her, turning very pale; and at each of the sentences she threw in his face, his lips quivered. She, in a cruel fit, yielded to a transport of anger of which she had no consciousness. "In short," she said, in a final cry, "she's Monsieur Mouret's mistress if you want to know!"
As she spoke her voice died away in her throat and she turned even paler than Colomban himself. Both stood looking at each other. Then he stammered out: "I love her!"
Denise felt ashamed of herself. ”

“ When he caught her smile, at the further end of the large drawing-room, and saw two other ladies listening, he was the first to make merry over his own big phrases.
"In short, old man, every counter-jumper who commences, has, at the present day, a chance of becoming a millionaire."
Vallagnosc indolently threw himself back on the sofa, half-closing his eyes and assuming an attitude of mingled fatigue and disdain in which a dash of affectation was added to his real hereditary exhaustion.
"Bah!" murmured he, "life isn't worth all that trouble. There is nothing worth living for." ”

“ But Bourdoncle in his frigid way obstinately repeated: "They will have their revenge; there will be one who will some day avenge all the others. It's bound to be."
"No fear," cried Mouret, exaggerating his Southern accent. "That one isn't born yet, my boy. And if she comes, you know, why there——"
So saying he raised his penholder, brandishing it and pointing it in the air, as if he were bent on stabbing some invisible heart with a knife. Bourdoncle thereupon resumed his walk, bowing as usual before the superiority of the governor, whose genius, with all its lapses, disconcerted him. ”

“ And suddenly, Pauline made a move as if to run off, having observed the white tie of an inspector coming out of the shawl department.
"Ah! it's only old Jouve!" she murmured in a relieved tone. "I can't think what makes the old man grin as he does when he sees us together. In your place I should beware, for he's too kind to you. He's an old humbug, as spiteful as a cat, and thinks he's still got his troopers to talk to." ”

“ And Mouret still continued to watch his nation of women, amidst the shimmering blaze. Their black shadows stood out vigorously against the pale backgrounds. Long eddies would now and again part the crowd; the fever of the day's great sale swept past like a frenzy through the disorderly, billowy sea of heads. People were beginning to leave; pillaged stuffs encumbered all the counters, and gold was chinking in the tills whilst the customers went off, their purses emptied, and their heads turned by the wealth of luxury amidst which they had been wandering all day. ”

“ They could not have been more concealed, more utterly lost had they been far away in the country, under the screening foliage of the trees. Only the advent of doubt, of jealous fear, could make it plain to the girl, that she had given herself, for ever, amidst this abetting solitude, through sheer emptiness of heart and mental weariness.
As it was, Denise, fancied she could detect a growing anxiety in the look Geneviève had cast at Colomban, so she good-naturedly replied: "Oh! when people are in love they always understand each other." ”

“ The second lunch was being rung; the clang of a bell came up from the basement with a distant muffled sound in the close air of the shop. Hutin and Favier went down. From all the counters, came salesmen one by one, hastening, helter-skelter, through the narrow entrance to the kitchen passage down below, a damp passage always lighted by gas. The flock pushed forward, without a laugh or a word, amidst an increasing clatter of crockery and a strong odour of food. Then at the far end of the passage there was a sudden halt, before a wicket. ”

“ In the distance, in the depths of the shop through which Lhomme had just slowly passed with the heavy gait of an overladen beast of burden, you could hear the uproar, the ripple of surprise and joy which this colossal sum had left behind it as it passed.
"Why, it's superb!" said Mouret, enchanted. "My good Lhomme, put it down there, and take a rest, for you look quite done up. I'll have the money taken to the central cashier's office. Yes, yes, put it all on my table, I want to see the heap."
He was full of a childish gaiety. The cashier and his son rid themselves of their burdens. ”

“ Madame Desforges was at last reaching the first storey, when a still greater surging of the crowd forced her to stop once more. Beneath her she now had the departments on the ground-floor, with the press of customers through which she had just passed. This was a new spectacle, a sea of fore-shortened heads, swarming with agitation like an ant-hill. The white price-tickets now seemed but so many narrow lines, the piles of ribbon became quite squat, the promontory of flannel was but a thin partition barring the gallery ”

“ But the sight of the galleries on the ground-floor especially reassured him. There was a crowd among the haberdashery, and even the linen and woollen departments were invaded. The procession of buyers had closed up; and now nearly all of them wore hats or bonnets, it was only here and there that you espied the white caps of a few belated housewives. In the yellow light streaming down into the silk hall, ladies had taken off their gloves to feel the Paris Delight on which they commented in whispers. ”

“ Mouret had never conceived anything more vast; it was the master stroke of his genius for display. Beneath the flow of all this whiteness, amidst the seeming disorder of the tissues, fallen as if by chance from the open drawers, there was so to say a harmonious phrase,—white followed and developed in all its tones: springing into existence, growing, and blossoming with the complicated orchestration of some master's fugue, the continuous development of which carries the mind away in an ever-soaring flight. ”

“ She smiled, hoping that he would come down and extricate her. But he did not even recognise her in the crowd; he was still with Vallagnosc, showing him the establishment, his face beaming with triumph the while.
The trepidation within was now stifling all outside noise; you no longer heard the rumbling of the vehicles, nor the banging of their doors; apart from the loud buzzing of the sales nought remained but a consciousness that the immensity of Paris stretched all around, an immensity which would always furnish buyers. ”

“ Then the abandonment became complete, they all made a butt of the "unkempt girl," who lived on in an hourly struggle, only managing by dint of the greatest courage to hold her own in the department.
Such then was her life now. She had to smile, look brave and gracious in a silk gown which did not belong to her, and she was ever suffering from fatigue, badly treated, under the continual menace of a brutal dismissal. Her room was her only refuge, the only spot where she could indulge in the luxury of a cry, when she had suffered too much during the day. ”

“ Then Madame Robineau, seated on the floor, with her head on a level with the stretcher, her cheek resting against the sacking on which her husband was lying, relieved her heart. "Oh! I must tell you. It's all for me that he wanted to die. He's always saying, 'I've robbed you; it was your money.' And at night he dreamed of those sixty thousand francs, waking up covered with perspiration, calling himself an incompetent fellow and saying that those who have no head for business ought not to risk other people's money. You know that he has always been nervous, and apt to worry himself. ”

“ Before going to bed Denise wished to finish her boot and do her washing. The cold became sharper still as the night advanced; but she did not feel it, the conversation had stirred her heart's blood. She was not shocked; it seemed to her that every woman had a right to arrange her life as she liked, when she was alone and free in the world. For her own part, however, she had never given way to such ideas; her sense of right and her healthy nature naturally maintained her in the respectability in which she had always lived. At last, towards one o'clock she went to bed. ”

“ Every one allowed the governor to be the best "dresser" in Paris albeit one of a revolutionary stamp, an initiator of the brutal and the colossal in the science of display. His fancy was a tumbling of stuffs, heaped pell-mell as if they had fallen by chance from the bursting boxes, and glowing with the most ardent contrasting colours, which heightened each other's intensity. The customers, said he, ought to feel their eyes aching by the time they left the shop. ”

“ Then she placed her before one of the tall glasses alternating with the massive doors of the cupboards containing the dresses. The spacious apartment, surrounded by these mirrors and carved oak wood-work, its floor covered with red carpet of a large pattern, resembled the commonplace drawing-room of an hotel, traversed by a continual stream of travellers. The young ladies dressed in regulation silk, and promenading their charms about, without ever sitting down on the dozen chairs reserved for the customers, completed the resemblance. ”

“ The mosaics and faiences of the friezes glittered, the green and red paint reflected the fire of the lavish gilding. The Paradise seemed like a red-hot furnace, in which the various displays—the palaces of gloves and cravats, the festoons of ribbons and laces, the lofty piles of linen and calico, the variegated parterres in which bloomed the light silks and foulards—were now burning. The exhibition of parasols, of shield-like roundness, threw forth metallic reflections. In the distance, beyond streaks of shadow, were counters sparkling and swarming with a throng, ablaze with sunshine. ”