“But there's Madame Desforges over there!” exclaimed the countess, looking at a brougham that had just arrived.
“Do you think so?” murmured Madame Guibal. “After all those stories! She must still be weeping over the fire at The Four Seasons.”
It was really Henriette. On perceiving her friends, she came up with a gay, smiling air, concealing her defeat beneath the fashionable ease of her manner.
“Dear me! yes, I wanted to have a look round. It's better to see for one's self, isn't it? Oh! we are still good friends with Monsieur Mouret, though he is said to be furious since I have interested myself in that rival house. Personally, there is only one thing I cannot forgive him, and that is, to have pushed on the marriage of my protege, Mademoiselle de Fontenailles, with that Joseph——”
“What! it's done?” interrupted Madame de Boves. “What a horror!”
“Yes, my dear, and solely to annoy us. I know him; he wished to intimate that the daughters of our great families are only fit to marry his shop messengers.”
She was getting quite animated. They had all four remained on the pavement, amidst the pushing at the entrance. Little by little, however, the stream carried them in; and they had only to abandon themselves to the current, they passed the door as if lifted up, without being conscious of it, talking louder to make themselves heard. They were now asking each other about Madame Marty; it was said that poor Monsieur Marty, after violent scenes at home, had gone quite mad; he was diving into all the treasures of the earth, exhausting mines of gold, loading tumbrils with diamonds and precious stones.
“Poor fellow!” said Madame Guibal, “he who was always so shabby, with his teacher's humility! And the wife?”
“She's ruining an uncle, now,” replied Henriette, “a worthy old man who has gone to live with her, having lost his wife. But she must be here, we shall see her.”
A surprise made the ladies stop short. Before them extended the shop, the largest drapery establishment in the world, as the advertisements said. The grand central gallery now ran from end to end, extending from the Rue du Dix-Décembre to the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin; whilst to the right and to the left, like the aisles of a church, ran the Monsigny Gallery and the Michodière Gallery, right along the two streets, without a break. Here and there the halls crossed and formed open spaces amidst the metallic framework of the suspended stairs and flying bridges. The inside arrangements had been all changed: the bargains were now placed on the Rue du Dix-Décembre side, the silk department was in the centre, the glove department occupied the Saint-Augustin Hall at the back; and, from the new grand vestibule, one beheld, on looking up, the bedding department, moved from one end of the second floor to the other. The number of departments now amounted to the enormous figure of fifty; several, quite fresh, were to be inaugurated that very day; others, become too important, had been simply divided, in order to facilitate the sales; and, owing to this continual increase of business, the staff had been increased to three thousand and forty-five employees.