The Ladies' Paradise

by Émile Zola

Denise was in great trouble. For the last fortnight she had been worn out with fatigue and anxiety; she had been obliged to put Pépé to school, and had been running about on account of Jean, who was so stricken with the pastrycook's niece, that he had implored his sister to go and ask her hand in marriage. Then her aunt's death, this fresh catastrophe, had quite overwhelmed the young girl, though Mouret had again offered his services, giving her leave to do what she liked for her uncle and the others. One morning she had yet another interview with him, at the news that Bourras had been turned into the street, and that Baudu was going to shut up shop. Then, she went out after lunch in the hope of at least comforting these two.

In the Rue de la Michodière, Bourras was standing on the foot pavement opposite his house, whence he had been evicted on the previous day by a fine trick, a discovery of the lawyers. As Mouret held several bills, he had easily obtained an order in bankruptcy against the umbrella-maker and then had given five hundred francs for the expiring lease at the sale ordered by the court; so that the obstinate old man had for five hundred francs allowed himself to be deprived of what he had refused to surrender for a hundred thousand. The architect, who came with his gang of workmen, had been obliged to employ the police to get him out. The goods had been taken and sold, the rooms cleared; however, he still obstinately remained in the corner where he slept, and from which out of pity they did not like to drive him. The workmen even attacked the roofing over his head. They took off the rotten slates, the ceilings fell in and the walls cracked, and yet he remained there, under the bare old beams, amidst the ruins. At last when the police came, he went away. But on the following morning he again appeared on the opposite side of the street, after passing the night in a lodging-house of the neighbourhood.

"Monsieur Bourras!" said Denise, kindly.

He did not hear her for his flaming eyes were devouring the workmen who were attacking the front of the hovel with their picks. Through the glassless windows you could see the inside of the house, the wretched rooms, and the black staircase, to which the sun had not penetrated for the last two hundred years.

"Ah! it's you," he replied at last, when he recognised her. "A nice bit of work they're doing, eh? the robbers!"

She no longer dared to speak; her heart was stirred by the lamentable wretchedness of the old place; she was unable to take her eyes off the mouldy stones that were falling. Up above on a corner of the ceiling of her old room, she once more perceived that name—Ernestine—written in black and shaky letters with the flame of a candle; and the remembrance of her days of misery came back to her, inspiring her with a tender sympathy for all suffering. However, the workmen, in order to knock one of the walls down at a blow, had attacked it at its base. It was already tottering.

"If only it could crush them all," growled Bourras, in a savage voice.

There was a terrible cracking noise. The frightened workmen ran out into the street. In falling, the wall shook and carried all the rest with it. No doubt the hovel, with its flaws and cracks was ripe for this downfall; a push had sufficed to cleave it from top to bottom. It was a pitiful crumbling, the razing of a mud-house soddened by rain. Not a partition remained standing; on the ground there was nothing but a heap of rubbish, the dung of the past cast, as it were, at the street corner.

"My God!" the old man had exclaimed as if the blow had resounded in his very entrails.

He stood there gaping; he would never have imagined that it would have been so quickly over. And he looked at the gap, the hollow at last yawning beside The Ladies' Paradise, now freed of the wart which had so long disgraced it. The gnat was crushed; this was the final triumph over the galling obstinacy of the infinitely little; the whole block was now invaded and conquered. Passers-by lingered to talk to the workmen, who began crying out against those old buildings which were only good for killing people.