“Yes, yes; extraordinary!”
But beneath this enthusiasm, which was to be decidedly the fashionable note of the day, Madame Bourdelais retained her practical housekeeper's coolness. She was carefully examining a piece of Paris Paradise, for she had come on purpose to take advantage of the exceptional cheapness of this silk, if she found it really advantageous. She was doubtless satisfied with it, for she took twenty-five yards, hoping it would be sufficient to make a dress for herself and a cloak for her little girl.
“What! you are going already?” resumed Madame Desforges. “Take a walk round with us.”
“No, thanks; they are waiting for me at home. I didn't like to risk bringing the children into this crowd.”
And she went away, preceded by the salesman carrying * the twenty-five yards of silk, and who led her to pay-desk No. 10, where young Albert was getting confused with all the demands for bills with which he was besieged. When the salesman was able to approach, after having inscribed his sale on the debit-note, he called out the item, which the cashier entered in a register; then it was checked over, and the leaf torn off the salesman's book of debit-notes was stuck on a file near the receipting stamp.
“One hundred and forty francs,” said Albert.
Madame Bourdelais paid and gave her address, for having come on foot she did not wish to be troubled with a parcel. Joseph had already got the silk behind the pay-desk, and was tying it up; and the parcel, thrown into a basket on wheels, was sent down to the delivery department, where all the goods in the shop seemed to be swallowed up with a sluice-like noise.
Meanwhile, the block was becoming so great in the silk department that Madame Desforges and Madame Marty could not at first find a salesman disengaged. They remained standing, mingling with the crowd of ladies who were looking at the silks and feeling them, staying there hours without making up their minds. But the Paris Paradise was a great success; around it pressed one of those crowds which decides the fortune of a fashion in a day. A host of shopmen were engaged in measuring off this silk; one could see, above the customers' heads, the pale glimmer of the unfolded pieces, in the continual coming and going of the fingers along the oak yard measures hanging from brass rods; one could hear the noise of the scissors cutting the silk, without ceasing, as the sale went on, as if there were not enough shopmen to suffice for all the greedy outstretched hands of the customers.
“It really isn't bad for five francs twelve sous,” said Madame Desforges, who had succeeded in getting hold of a piece at the edge of the table.
Madame Marty and her daughter experienced a disappointment. The newspapers had said so much about it, that they had expected something stronger and more brilliant. But Bouthemont had just recognised Madame Desforges, and in order to get in the good graces of such a handsome lady, who was supposed to be all-powerful with the governor, he came up, with his rather coarse amiability. What! no one was serving her! it was unpardonable! He begged her to be indulgent, for really they did not know which way to turn. And he went to look for some chairs amongst the neighbouring skirts, laughing with his good-natured laugh, full of a brutal love for the sex, which did not seem to displease Henrietta.