"Yes, mamma has her suspicions, I think. As for papa, he is too much worried, and does not know the pain he is causing me by postponing the marriage. Mamma has questioned me several times, greatly alarmed to see me pining away. She has never been very strong herself, and has often said to me: 'My poor child, you're like myself, by no means strong. Besides, one doesn't grow much in these shops. But she must find me getting really too thin now. Look at my arms; would you believe it?"
Then with a trembling hand she again took up the water bottle. Her cousin tried to prevent her from drinking.
"But I'm so thirsty," said she, "let me drink."
They could hear Baudu talking in a loud voice. Then suddenly yielding to an inspiration of her heart, Denise knelt down before Geneviève and throwing her sisterly arms round her neck, kissed her, and assured her that everything would yet turn out all right, that she would marry Colomban, would get well, and live happily. And then she got up quickly for her uncle was calling her.
"Jean is here. Come along."
It was indeed Jean, who, looking rather scared, had just arrived for dinner. When they told him it was striking eight, he seemed amazed. Impossible! He had only just left his master's. They chaffed him. No doubt he had come by way of the Bois de Vincennes. But as soon as he could get near his sister, he whispered to her: "It's all the fault of a little laundry-girl. I've got a cab outside by the hour. Give me five francs."
He went out for a minute, and then returned to dinner, for Madame Baudu would not hear of his going away without taking, at least, a plate of soup. Geneviève had returned to the shop in her usual silent and retiring manner. Colomban was now half asleep behind the counter; and the evening passed away, slow and melancholy, only animated by Baudu's tramp, as he walked from one end of the empty shop to the other. A single gas-burner was alight—the shadows of the low ceiling fell in large masses, like black earth from a ditch.
Several months passed away. Denise came in nearly every evening to cheer up Geneviève a bit, but the Baudus' home became more melancholy than ever. The works opposite were a continual torment, which made them feel their bad luck more and more keenly. Even when they had an hour of hope—some unexpected joy—the uproar of a tumbrel-load of bricks, the sound of a stone-cutter's saw or the simple call of a mason would at once suffice to mar their pleasure. In fact, the whole neighbourhood was stirred by it all. From behind the hoarding edging and obstructing the three streets, there issued a movement of feverish activity. Although the architect was utilizing the existing buildings, he was opening them in various ways to adapt them to their new uses; and right in the centre of the vacant space supplied by the court-yards, he was building a central gallery as vast as a church, which would be reached by a grand entrance in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin in the very middle of the frontage. They had, at first, experienced great difficulty in laying the foundations, for they had come upon sewer deposits and loose earth, full of human bones; besides which the boring of the well—a well three hundred feet deep—destined to yield two hundred gallons a minute had made the neighbours very anxious. They had now got the walls up to the first storey; and the entire block was surrounded by scaffoldings, regular towers of timber. There was an incessant noise from the grinding of the windlasses hoisting up the free-stone, the abrupt unloading of iron bars, the clamour of the army of workmen, accompanied by the noise of picks and hammers. But above all else, what most deafened you was the sound of the machinery. Everything went by steam, screeching whistles rent the air; and then too, at the slightest gust of wind, clouds of plaster flew about and covered the neighbouring roofs like a fall of snow. The despairing Baudus looked on at this implacable dust penetrating everywhere—filtering through the closest woodwork, soiling the goods in their shop, even gliding into their beds; and the idea that they must continue to breathe it—that it would end by killing them—empoisoned their existence.
The situation, however, was destined to become worse still, for in September, the architect, afraid of not being ready in time, decided to carry on the work at night also. Powerful electric lamps were established, and then the uproar became continuous. Gangs of men relieved each other; the hammers never stopped, the engines whistled night and day; and again the everlasting clamour seemed to raise and scatter the white dust. The exasperated Baudus now had to give up the idea of sleeping even; they were shaken in their alcove; the noises changed into nightmare whenever they managed to doze off. Then, if they got up to calm their fever, and went, with bare feet, to pull back the curtains and look out of the window, they were frightened by the vision of The Ladies' Paradise flaring in the darkness like a colossal forge, where their ruin was being forged. Along the half-built walls, pierced with empty bays, the electric lamps threw broad bluey rays, of blinding intensity. Two o'clock struck—then three, then four; and during the painful sleep of the neighbourhood, the works, expanding in the lunar-like brightness, became colossal and fantastic, swarming with black shadows, noisy workmen, whose silhouettes gesticulated against the crude whiteness of the new walls.
Baudu had spoken correctly. The small traders of the adjacent streets were receiving another mortal blow. Every time The Ladies' Paradise created new departments there were fresh failures among the shopkeepers of the district. The disaster spread, one could hear the oldest houses cracking. Mademoiselle Tatin, of the under-linen shop in the Passage Choiseul, had just been declared bankrupt; Quinette, the glover, could hardly hold out another six months; the furriers, Vanpouille, were obliged to sub-let a part of their premises; and if the Bédorés, brother and sister, still kept on as hosiers, in the Rue Gaillon, they were evidently living on the money they had formerly saved. And now more smashes were on the point of being added to those long since foreseen; the fancy goods department threatened a dealer in the Rue Saint-Roch, Deslignières, a big, full-blooded man; whilst the furniture department was injuring Messrs. Piot and Rivoire, whose shops slumbered in the gloom of the Passage Sainte-Anne. It was even feared that an attack of apoplexy would carry off Deslignières, who had been in a terrible rage ever since The Ladies' Paradise had marked up purses at thirty per cent. reduction. The furniture dealers, who were much calmer, affected to joke at these counter-jumpers who wanted to meddle with such articles as chairs and tables; but customers were already leaving them, and the success of Mouret's department threatened to be a formidable one. It was all over, they must bow their heads. After these, others would be swept off in their turn and there was no reason why every business should not be driven away. Some day The Ladies' Paradise alone would cover the neighbourhood with its roof.