Jean and Pépé, who were waiting, smiling amidst this overflowing torrent of women, followed their sister. They now had to go to the under-linen department, to get four chemises like the half-dozen which Thérèse had bought on the Saturday. But there, where the exhibition of white goods was snowing down from every shelf, they were almost stifled, and found it very difficult to get along.
In the first place, at the corset counter a little scene was collecting quite a crowd. Madame Boutarel, who had arrived in Paris from the south, this time with her husband and daughter, had been wandering all over the place since morning, collecting an outfit for the young lady, who was about to be married. The father was consulted at every turn so that it seemed they would never finish. At last they had stranded here; and whilst the young lady was absorbed in a profound study of some undergarments, the mother had disappeared, having cast her eyes on some corsets she herself fancied. When Monsieur Boutarel, a big, full-blooded man, quite bewildered, left his daughter to search for his wife, he at last found her in a sitting-room, at the door of which he was politely invited to take a seat. These rooms were like narrow cells, glazed with ground glass, and not even husbands were allowed to enter them. Saleswomen came out and went in quickly, closing the doors behind them, while men waited outside, seated in rows on arm-chairs, and looking very weary. Monsieur Boutarel, when he understood matters, got really angry, crying out that he wanted his wife, and insisting on knowing what they had done with her. It was in vain that they tried to calm him. Madame Boutarel was obliged to come out, to the delight of the crowd, which was discussing and laughing over the affair.
Denise and her brothers were at last able to get past. Every article of ladies' underwear was here displayed in a suite of rooms classified into various departments. The corsets and dress-improvers occupied one counter, there were hand-sown corsets, Duchess, cuirass, and, above all, white silk corsets, fan-pointed with divers colours, these latter forming a special display, an army of dummies without heads or legs, nothing indeed but busts; and close by were horse-hair and other dress improvers, often of fantastic aspect. But afterwards came articles of fine linen, white cuffs and cravats, white fichus and collars, an infinite variety of light trifles, a white foam which escaped from the boxes and was heaped up like so much snow. There were loose jackets, little bodices, morning gowns and peignoirs in linen, nainsook, and lace, long white roomy garments, which spoke of the morning lounge. Then appeared white petticoats of every length, the petticoat that clings to the knees, and the long petticoat which sweeps the pavement, a rising sea of petticoats, in which one lost oneself.
At the trousseau department there was a wonderful display of pleating, embroidery, valenciennes, percale and Cambric; and then followed another room devoted to baby-linen, where the voluptuous whiteness of woman's clothing developed into the chaste whiteness of infancy—an innocence, a joy, the young wife become a mother, amidst flannel coifs, chemises and caps like dolls' things, christening gowns, cashmere pelisses, indeed all the white down of birth, like a fine shower of white feathers.
"They are chemises with running-strings," said Jean, who was delighted with the rising tide of feminine attire about him.
However, Pauline ran up as soon as she perceived Denise; and before even asking what she wanted, began to talk in a low tone, stirred as she was by the rumours circulating in the building. In her department, two saleswomen had even got to quarrelling over it, one affirming and the other denying the favourite's departure.
"You'll stay with us, I'll stake my life. What would become of me?" said Pauline; and as Denise replied that she intended to leave the next day: "No, no," the other added, "you think so, but I know better. You must appoint me second-hand, now that I've got my baby. Baugé is reckoning on it, my dear."
Pauline smiled with an air of conviction. Then she gave the six chemises; and, Jean having said that he must next go to the handkerchief counter, she called an auxiliary to carry both the chemises and the jacket left by the auxiliary from the mantle department. The woman who happened to answer was Mademoiselle de Fontenailles, recently married to Joseph. She had just obtained this menial situation as a great favour, and she wore a long black blouse, marked on the shoulder with a number in yellow wool.
"Follow mademoiselle," said Pauline, and then returning to Denise and again lowering her voice, she added: "It's understood that I am to be appointed second-hand, eh?"
Denise promised, with a laugh, by way of joking in her turn. And she went off, going down the stairs with Jean and Pépé, all three followed by the auxiliary. On the ground-floor, they found themselves in the woollen department, a gallery entirely hung with white swanskin cloth and white flannel. Liénard, whom his father had vainly recalled to Angers, was talking to the handsome Mignot who was now a traveller, and had boldly reappeared at The Ladies' Paradise. No doubt they were speaking of Denise, for they both stopped talking to bow to her with a ceremonious air. In fact, as she passed through the departments the salesmen appeared full of emotion and bent their heads before her, uncertain as they were what she might be the next day. They whispered and thought she looked triumphant; and the betting was once more altered; they again risked bottles of Argenteuil wine and fish dinners over the event. She had entered the linen-gallery in order to get to the handkerchief counter, which was at the further end. The show of white goods continued: cottons, madapolams, dimities, quiltings, calicoes, nainsooks, muslins, tarlatans; then came the linen, in enormous piles, the pieces ranged alternately like blocks of stone: stout linen, fine linen, of all widths, white and unbleached, some of pure flax, whitened in the sun; next the same thing commenced once more, there were departments for each sort of linen: house linen, table linen, kitchen linen, a continual crush of white goods, sheets, pillow-cases, innumerable styles of napkins, table-cloths, aprons, and dusters. And the bowing continued, all made way for Denise to pass, while Baugé rushed out to smile on her, as on the good fairy of the house. At last, after crossing the counterpane department, a room hung with white banners, she arrived at the handkerchief counter, the ingenious decoration of which delighted the throng; everything here was arranged in white columns, white pyramids, white castles, an intricate architecture, solely composed of handkerchiefs, some of lawn, others of cambric, Irish linen, or China silk, some marked, some embroidered by hand, some trimmed with lace, some hemstitched, and some woven with vignettes; the whole forming a city of white bricks of infinite variety, standing out mirage-like against an Eastern sky, warmed to a white heat.