“Now,” added she, “blow your candle out, so that they can't see which door opens; you can light it again immediately.”
The candle blown out, they shook hands; and Pauline ran off to her room, without leaving any trace in the darkness but the vague rustling of her petticoats amidst the deep slumber of the occupants of the other little rooms.
Before going to bed Denise wanted to finish her boot and do her washing. The cold became sharper still as the night advanced; but she did not feel it, this conversation had stirred up her heart's blood. She was not shocked, it seemed to her that every one had a right to arrange her life as she liked, when alone and free in the world. She had never given way to such ideas; her sense of right and her healthy nature maintained her naturally in the respectability in which she had always lived. About one o'clock she at last went to bed. No, she did not love any one. So what was the use of disarranging her life, of spoiling the maternal devotion she had vowed for her two brothers? However, she did not sleep; a crowd of indistinct forms passed before her closed eyes, vanishing in the darkness.
From this moment Denise took an interest in the love-stories of the department. During the slack moments they were constantly occupied by their affairs with the men. Gossiping tales flew about, stories of adventures amused the girls for a week. Clara was a scandal; she had three lovers, without counting a string of chance admirers whom she had in tow; and, if she did not leave the shop, where she did the least work possible, disdaining the money which she could easily and more agreeably earn elsewhere, it was to shield herself from her family; for she was mortally afraid of old Prunaire, who threatened to come to Paris and break her arms and legs with his clogs. Marguerite, on the contrary, behaved very well, and was not known to have any lover; this caused some surprise, for all knew of her adventure—her coming to Paris to be confined in secret; how had she come to have the child, if she were so virtuous? And there were some who hinted at an accident, adding that she was now reserving herself for her cousin at Grenoble. The young ladies also joked about Madame Frédéric, declaring that she was discreetly connected with certain great personages; the truth was that they knew nothing of her love-affairs; for she disappeared every evening, stiff as starch in her widow's ill-temper, evidently in a great hurry, though nobody knew where she was running off to so eagerly. As to Madame Aurélie's passions, her pretended larks with obedient young men, they were certainly false; mere inventions, spread abroad by discontented saleswomen just for fun. Perhaps she had formerly displayed rather too much motherly feeling for one of her son's friends, but she now occupied too high a place in the drapery business to allow her to amuse herself with such childish matters. Then there was the crowd leaving in the evening, nine girls out of every ten having young men waiting for them at the door; in the Place Gaillon, along the Rue de la Michodière, and the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, there was always quite a troop of men standing motionless, watching for the girls coming out; and, when they came, each one gave his arm to his lady and disappeared, talking with a marital tranquillity.
But what troubled Denise most was to have discovered Colomban's secret. He was continually to be seen on the other side of the street, at the door of The Old Elbeuf, his eyes raised, and never quitting the young ladies in the readymade department. When he felt Denise was watching him he blushed and turned away his head, as if afraid she might betray him to Geneviève, although there had been no further connection between the Baudus and their niece since her engagement at The Ladies' Paradise. At first she had thought he was in love with Marguerite, on seeing his despairing looks, for Marguerite, being very quiet, and sleeping in the building, was not very easy to get at. But what was her astonishment to find that Colomban's ardent glances were intended for Clara. He had been like that for months, devoured by passion on the opposite side of the way, without finding the courage to declare himself; and that for a girl who was perfectly free, who lived in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, and whom he could have spoken to any evening before she walked off on the arm of a fresh fellow! Clara herself appeared to have no idea of her conquest. Denise's discovery filled her with a painful emotion. Was love, then, such a stupid thing as that? What! this fellow, who had real happiness within his reach, was ruining his life, enraptured with this good-for-nothing girl as if she were a saint! From that day she was seized with a feeling of grief every time she saw Geneviève's pale and suffering face behind the green panes of The Old Elbeuf.
In the evening, Denise could not help thinking a great deal, on seeing the young ladies march off with their sweethearts Those who did not sleep at The Ladies' Paradise, disappeared until the next day, bringing back into their departments an outside odour, a sort of troubling, unknown impression. The young girl was sometimes obliged to reply with a smile to a friendly nod from Pauline, whom Baugé waited for every evening regularly at half-past eight, at the corner of the fountain in the Place Gaillon. Then, after having gone out the last and taken a furtive walk, always alone, she was invariably the first in, going upstairs to work, or to bed, her head filled with dreams, full of curiosity about this outdoor life, of which she knew nothing. She certainly did not envy the young ladies, she was happy in her solitude, in that unsociableness to which her timidity condemned her, as to a refuge; but her imagination carried her away, she tried to guess things, evoking the pleasures constantly described before her, the cafés, the restaurants, the theatres, the Sundays spent on the water and in the country taverns. This filled her with a mental weakness, a desire mingled with lassitude; and she seemed to be already tired of those amusements which she had never tasted.
However, there was but little room for these dangerous dreams in her daily working life. During the thirteen hours' hard work in the shop, there was no time for any display of tenderness between the salesmen and the saleswomen. If the continual fight for money had not abolished the sexes, the unceasing press of business which occupied their minds and fatigued their bodies would have sufficed to kill all desire. But very few love-affairs had been known in the establishment amidst the hostilities and friendships between the men and the women, the constant elbowings from department to department. They were all nothing but the wheels, turned round by the immense machine, abdicating their personalities, simply contributing their strength to this commonplace, powerful total. It was only outside that they resumed their individual lives, with the abrupt flame of awakening passions.
Denise, however, one day saw Albert Lhomme slipping a note into the hand of a young lady in the underclothing department, after having several times passed through with an air of indifference. The dead season, which lasts from December to February was commencing; and she had periods of rest, hours spent on her feet, her eyes wandering all over the shop, waiting for customers. The young ladies of her department were especially friendly with the salesmen who served the lace, but their intimacy never went any further than some rather risky jokes, exchanged in whispers. In the lace department there was a second-hand, a gay youth who pursued Clara with all sorts of abominable stories, simply for a joke—so careless at heart that he made no effort to meet her outside; and thus it was from counter to counter, between the gentlemen and the young ladies, a series of winks, nods, and remarks, which they alone understood. At times they indulged in some sly gossip with their backs half turned and with a dreamy air, in order to put the terrible Bourdoncle off the scent As for Deloche, for a long time he contented him self with smiling at Denise when he met her; but, getting bolder, he occasionally murmured a friendly word. The day she had noticed Madame Aurélie's son giving a note to the young lady in the under-linen department, Deloche was asking her if she had enjoyed her lunch, feeling to want to say something, and unable to find anything more amiable. He also saw the white paper; and looking at the young girl, they both blushed at this intrigue carried on before them.
But under these rumours which gradually awoke the woman in her, Denise still retained her infantine peace of mind. The one thing that stirred her heart was meeting with Hutin. But even that was only gratitude in her eyes; she simply thought herself touched by the young man's politeness. He could not bring a customer to the department without her feeling quite confused. Several times, on returning from a pay-desk, she found herself making a détour, uselessly passing the silk counter, her bosom heaving with emotion. One afternoon she met Mouret there, who seemed to follow her with a smile. He paid no more attention to her now, only addressing a few words to her from time to time, to give her a few hints about her toilet, and to joke with her, as an impossible girl, a little savage almost like a boy, of whom he would never make a coquette, notwithstanding all his knowledge of women; sometimes he even ventured to laugh at and tease her, without wishing to acknowledge to himself the charm which this little saleswoman inspired in him, with her comical head of hair. Before this mute smile, Denise trembled, as if she were in fault Did he know why she was going through the silk department, when she could not herself have explained what made her make such a détour?
Hutin, moreover, did not seem to be aware in any way of the young girl's grateful looks. The shop-girls were not his style, he affected to despise them, boasting more than ever of extraordinary adventures with the lady customers; a baroness had been struck with him at his counter, and the wife of an architect had fallen into his arms one day when he went to her house about an error in measuring he had made. Beneath this Norman boasting he simply concealed girls picked up in cafés and music-halls. Like all young gentlemen in the drapery line, he had a mania for spending, fighting in his department the whole week with a miser's greediness, with the sole wish to squander his money on Sunday on the racecourses, in the restaurants, and dancing-saloons; never thinking of saving a penny, spending his salary as soon as he drew it, absolutely indifferent about the future. Favier did not join him in these parties. Hutin and he, so friendly in the shop, bowed to each other at the door, where all further intercourse ceased. A great many of the shopmen, in continual contact indoors, became strangers, ignorant of each other's lives, as soon as they set foot in the streets. But Liénard was Hutin's intimate friend. Both lived in the same lodging-house, the Hôtel de Smyrne, in the Rue Sainte-Anne, a murky building entirely inhabited by shop assistants. In the morning they arrived together; then, in the evening, the first one free, after the folding was done, waited for the other at the Cafe Saint-Roch, in the Rue Saint-Roch, a little café where the employees of The Ladies' Paradise usually met, brawling, drinking, and playing cards amidst the smoke of their pipes. They often stopped there till one in the morning, until the tired landlord turned them out. For the last month they had been spending three evenings a week at a free-and-easy at Montmartre; and they took their friends with them, creating a success for Mademoiselle Laure, a music-hall singer. Hutin's latest conquest, whose talent they applauded with such violent blows and such a clamour that the police had been obliged to interfere on two occasions.