The Ladies' Paradise. Эмиль Золя

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      On hearing that it was the first on the right they all turned back, making the tour of the establishment. But just as she was entering the street, Denise was again attracted by a window in which ladies' mantles were displayed. At Cornaille's the mantles had been her department, but she had never seen anything like this, and remained rooted to the spot with admiration. At the rear a large scarf of Bruges lace, of considerable value, was spread out like an altar-veil, with its two creamy wings extended; then there were flounces of Alençon, grouped in garlands; and from the top to the bottom, like falling snow, fluttered lace of every description—Malines, Valenciennes, Brussels, and Venetian-point. On each side pieces of cloth rose up in dark columns imparting distance to the background. And the mantles were here, in this sort of chapel raised to the worship of woman's beauty and grace. In the centre was a magnificent article, a velvet mantle trimmed with silver fox; on one side of it appeared a silk cloak lined with miniver, on the other a cloth cloak edged with cocks' plumes; and, last of all, some opera cloaks in white cashmere and quilted silk trimmed with swansdown or chenille. There was something for every taste, from the opera cloaks at twenty-nine francs to the velvet mantle which was marked eighteen hundred. The round busts of the dummies filled out the stuff, the prominent hips exaggerating the slimness of the waists and the absent heads being replaced by large price-tickets pinned on the necks, whilst the mirrors, on each side of the window, reflected and multiplied all these forms, peopling the street, as it were, with beautiful women for sale, each bearing a price in big figures in lieu of a head.

      "How stunning they are!" murmured Jean, finding no other words to express his emotion.

      This time he himself had become motionless, and stood there gaping. All this female luxury turned him rosy with pleasure. He had a girl's beauty—a beauty which he seemed to have stolen from his sister—a fair white skin, ruddy curly hair, lips and eyes overflowing with tenderness. By his side Denise, with her rather long face, large mouth, fading complexion and light hair, appeared thinner still. Pépé, who was also fair, with the fairness of infancy, now clung closer to her, as if anxious to be caressed, perturbed and delighted as he was by the sight of the beautiful ladies in the window. And those three fair ones, poorly clad in black, that sad-looking girl between the pretty child and the handsome youth, looked so strange yet so charming standing there on the pavement, that the passers-by glanced back smilingly.

      For some minutes a stout man with grey hair and a large yellow face had been looking at them from a shop-door on the other side of the street. He had been standing there with bloodshot eyes and contracted mouth, beside himself with rage at the display made by The Ladies' Paradise, when the sight of the girl and her brothers had completed his exasperation. What were those three simpletons doing there, gaping in front of the cheap-jack's show booth?

      "What about uncle?" asked Denise, suddenly, as if just waking up.

      "We are in the Rue de la Michodière," replied Jean. "He must live somewhere about here."

      They raised their heads and looked round; and just in front of them, above the stout man, they perceived a green sign-board on which in yellow letters, discoloured by the rain was the following inscription: "THE OLD ELBEUF. Cloths and Flannels. BAUDU, late HAUCHECORNE." The house, coated with ancient rusty paint, and quite flat and unadorned amidst the surrounding mansions of the Louis XIV. period, had only three front windows up above, square and shutterless windows simply provided with handrails supported by two iron bars placed crosswise. But what most struck Denise, whose eyes were full of the bright display of The Ladies' Paradise, was the low ground-floor shop, surmounted by an equally low storey with half-moon windows, of prison-like appearance. Right and left, framed round by wood work of a bottle-green hue, which time had tinted with ochre and bitumen, were two deep windows, black and dusty, in which pieces of cloth heaped one on another could vaguely be seen. The open doorway seemed to conduct into the darkness and dampness of a cellar.

      "That's the house," said Jean.

      "Well, we must go in," declared Denise. "Come on, Pépé."

      All three, however, grew somewhat troubled, as if seized with fear. When their father had died, carried off by the same fever which a month previously had killed their mother, their uncle Baudu, in the emotion born of this double bereavement, had certainly written to Denise, assuring her that there would always be a place for her in his house whenever she might like to try fortune in Paris. But this had taken place nearly a year ago, and the young girl was now sorry that she should have so impulsively left Valognes without informing her uncle. The latter did not know them, never having set foot in the little town since the day when he had left it as a boy, to enter the service of the draper Hauchecorne, whose daughter he had subsequently married.

      "Monsieur Baudu?" asked Denise, at last making up her mind to speak to the stout man who was still eyeing them, surprised by their appearance and manners.

      "That's me," he replied.

      Then Denise blushed deeply and stammered: "Oh, I'm so pleased! I am Denise. This is Jean, and this is Pépé. You see, we have come, uncle."

      Baudu seemed lost in amazement. His big eyes rolled in his yellow face; he spoke slowly and with difficulty. He had evidently been far from thinking of this family which now suddenly dropped down upon him.

      "What—what, you here?" he several times repeated. "But you were at Valognes. Why aren't you at Valognes?"

      In her sweet but rather faltering voice she then explained that since the death of her father, who had spent every penny he possessed in his dye-works, she had acted as a mother to the two children; but the little she had earned at Cornaille's did not suffice to keep the three of them. Jean certainly worked at a cabinet-maker's, a repairer of old furniture, but didn't earn a sou. Still, he had got to like the business, and had even learned to carve. One day, having found a piece of ivory, he had amused himself by carving it into a head, which a gentleman staying in the town had seen and praised; and this gentleman it was who had been the cause of their leaving Valognes, as he had found Jean a place with an ivory-carver in Paris.

      "So you see, uncle," continued Denise, "Jean will commence his apprenticeship at his new master's to-morrow. They ask no premium, and will board and lodge him. And so I felt sure that Pépé and I would be able to jog along. At all events we can't be worse off than we were at Valognes."

      She said nothing about a certain love affair of Jean's, of certain letters which he had written to the daughter of a nobleman of the town, of the kisses which the pair had exchanged over a wall—in fact, quite a scandal which had strengthened her in her determination to leave. And if she was so anxious to be in Paris herself it was that she might be able to look after her brother, feeling, as she did, quite a mother's tender anxiety for this gay and handsome youth, whom all the women adored. Uncle Baudu, however, couldn't get over it, but continued his questions.

      "So your father left you nothing," said he. "I certainly thought there was still something left. Ah! how many times did I write advising him not to take those dye-works! He was a good-hearted fellow certainly, but he had no head for business And you were left with those two youngsters to look after—you've had to keep them, eh?"

      His bilious face had now become clearer, his eyes were not so bloodshot as when he had stood glaring at The Ladies' Paradise. All at once he noticed that he was blocking up the doorway. "Well," said he, "come in, now you're here. Come in, that'll be better than gaping at a parcel of rubbish."

      And after addressing a last pout of anger to The Ladies' Paradise, he made way for the children by entering the shop and calling his wife and daughter: "Elizabeth, Geneviève, come down; here's company for you!"

      Denise and the two boys, however, hesitated at sight of the darkness of the shop. Blinded СКАЧАТЬ