The Ladies' Paradise

by Émile Zola

"Come, calm yourself," concluded Mouret, stricken with pity. "I won't tell you that everything happens and nothing happens, because that does not seem to comfort you just now. But I think that you ought to go and offer your arm to Madame de Boves—that would be more sensible than causing a scandal. The deuce! to think of it, you who professed such scorn for the universal rascality of the present day!"

"Of course," cried Vallagnosc, innocently, "when it is a question of other people!"

However, he got up, and followed his old school-fellow's advice. Both were returning to the gallery when Madame de Boves came out of Bourdoncle's office. She accepted her son-in-law's arm with a majestic air, and as Mouret bowed to her with respectful gallantry, he heard her saying: "They've apologized to me. Really, these mistakes are abominable."

Blanche joined them, and they soon disappeared in the crowd. Then Mouret, alone and pensive, crossed the shop once more. This scene, which had diverted his thoughts from the struggle going on within him, now increased his fever, and decided him to make a supreme effort. A vague connection arose in his mind: the robbery perpetrated by that unfortunate woman, that last folly of the conquered customer laid low at the feet of the tempter, evoked the proud and avenging image of Denise, whose victorious heel he could feel upon his throat. He stopped at the top of the central staircase, and gazed for a long time into the immense nave, where his nation of women was swarming.

Six o'clock was about to strike, the daylight decreasing out-of-doors was gradually forsaking the covered galleries, already dim, and even waning in the halls which gloom was slowly invading. And in this uncertain glimmer, the electric lamps lighted up one by one, their globes of an opaque whiteness studding with moons the distant depths of the departments. It was a white brightness of a blinding fixity, spreading like the radiance of a discoloured star and killing the twilight. Then, when all were lighted, there came a delighted murmur from the crowd, and the great show of white goods assumed a fairy splendour. It seemed as if this colossal orgie of white was also burning, itself becoming so much light. The song of the white seemed to soar upward in the flaming whiteness of an aurora. A white glimmer darted from the linen and calico department in the Monsigny Gallery, like the first bright streak which lights up the eastern sky; whilst along the Michodière Gallery, the mercery and the passementerie, the fancy-goods and the ribbons threw out reflections of distant hills—with the white flash of mother-of-pearl buttons, silvered bronzes and sparkling beads. But the central nave especially was filled with a blaze of white: the white muslin "puffings" round the columns, the white dimities and piqués draping the staircases, the white counterpanes drooping like banners, the white guipures and laces flying in the air, opened up a firmament of dreamland, a vista of the dazzling whiteness of some paradise, where the marriage of an unknown queen was being celebrated. The tent of the silk-hall was this heaven's giant alcove, with white curtains, white gauzes and white tulles, whose shimmer screened the bride in her white nudity from the gaze of the curious. There was now nothing but this blinding nucleus of white light in which all other whites were merged, this snowy starry dust twinkling in the clear radiance.

And Mouret still continued to watch his nation of women, amidst the shimmering blaze. Their black shadows stood out vigorously against the pale backgrounds. Long eddies would now and again part the crowd; the fever of the day's great sale swept past like a frenzy through the disorderly, billowy sea of heads. People were beginning to leave; pillaged stuffs encumbered all the counters, and gold was chinking in the tills whilst the customers went off, their purses emptied, and their heads turned by the wealth of luxury amidst which they had been wandering all day. It was he who possessed them thus, who held them at his mercy by his continuous displays of novelties, his reductions of prices, and his "returns," his gallantry, puffery, and advertisements. He had conquered even the mothers, he reigned over all with the brutality of a despot, whose caprices ruined many a household. His creation was a sort of new religion; the churches, gradually deserted by wavering faith, were replaced by his bazaar, in the minds of the idle women of Paris. Woman now came and spent her leisure time in his establishment, those shivering anxious hours which she had formerly passed in churches: a necessary consumption of nervous passion, an ever renewed struggle of the god of dress against the husband, an ever renewed worship of the body with the promise of future divine beauty. If he had closed his doors, there would have been a rising in the street, the despairing cry of worshippers deprived of their confessional and altar! In their still growing passion for luxury, he saw them, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour yet obstinately lingering in the huge iron building, on the suspended staircases and flying bridges. Madame Marty and her daughter, carried away to the highest point, were wandering amongst the furniture. Madame Bourdelais, retained by her young people, could not get away from the fancy goods. And then came another group, Madame de Boves, still on Vallagnosc's arm, and followed by Blanche, stopping in each department and still daring to examine the goods with her superb air. But amidst the crowded sea of customers, that sea of bodies inflated with life and beating with desire, one and all decorated with bunches of violets, as though for the bridal of some sovereign, Mouret could now only distinguish the figure of Madame Desforges, who had stopped in the glove department with Madame Guibal. Despite her jealous rancour, she also was buying, and he felt himself to be the master once more, having them at his feet, beneath the dazzle of the electric light, like a drove of cattle from which he had drawn his fortune.

With a mechanical step, Mouret went along the galleries, so absorbed that he yielded to the pushing of the crowd. When he raised his head again he found himself in the new millinery department, the windows of which overlooked the Rue du Dix-Décembre. And there, his forehead against the glass, he made another halt and watched the departure of the throng. The setting sun was tinging the roofs of the white houses with yellow, the blue sky was growing paler, refreshed by a pure breeze; whilst in the twilight, which was already enveloping the side-walks down below, the electric lamps of The Ladies' Paradise threw forth the fixed glimmer of stars, lighted on the horizon at the decline of day. Towards the Opera-house and the Bourse were rows of waiting vehicles, the harness of the horses still presenting reflections of bright light, the gleam of a lamp, the glitter of a silver chain. At each minute the cry of a messenger was heard, and a cab drew near, or a brougham came forth from the ranks, took up a customer and went off at a rapid trot. The rows of conveyances were now diminishing, six went off at a time, occupying the whole street from one side to the other, amidst the banging of doors, the snapping of whips, and the hum of the passers-by, who swarmed between the wheels. There was a sort of continuous enlargement, a spreading of the customers, carried off to the four corners of the city, as the building emptied with the roaring clamour of a sluice. And the roof of The Ladies' Paradise, the big golden letters of the sky signs, the banners fluttering in the heavens, still flamed with the reflections of the setting sun, looking so colossal in the oblique light that they evoked the thought of some monster of advertising, some phalansterium whose buildings, incessantly multiplied, in turn covered up every district, as far as the distant woods of the suburbs. And the spreading soul of Paris, in a huge but gentle breath, sank asleep in the serenity of the evening, hovering in prolonged, languid caresses over the last vehicles which were spinning through the streets, now slowly deserted by the crowd as it disappeared into the darkness of the night.

Mouret, gazing around, had just felt something grand in himself; but, amid the quiver of triumph with which his flesh trembled, in face of Paris devoured and woman conquered, he experienced a sudden weakness, a defection of his strong will, by which in his turn he was overthrown beneath a superior force. It was an unreasonable longing to be vanquished amidst his victory, the nonsense of a warrior bending beneath the caprice of a child, on the morrow of his conquests. He who had struggled for months, who even that morning had sworn to stifle his passion, all at once yielded, seized by the vertigo which overcomes one on mountain heights, happy to commit what he looked upon as folly. His decision, so rapidly arrived at, acquired in a minute such energy that he saw nothing else useful and necessary in the world.

In the evening, after the last dinner, he sat waiting in his office, trembling like a young man about to stake his life's happiness, unable to keep still but incessantly going towards the door to listen to the hubbub in the shop, where the employees, submerged to the shoulders in a sea of stuffs, were now doing the folding up. At each footstep his heart beat. And all at once he experienced violent emotion, and rushed forward, for he had heard in the distance a deep murmur, which had gradually increased.

It was Lhomme slowly approaching with the day's receipts. That day they were so heavy, there was such a quantity of silver and copper, that he had been obliged to enlist the services of two messengers. Behind him came Joseph and one of his colleagues, both bending beneath the weight of the bags, enormous bags, thrown on their shoulders like sacks of plaster, whilst he walked on in front with the notes and gold, a note-book swollen with flimsies, and two bags hung round his neck, the weight of which made him sway to the right, the same side as his broken arm. Slowly, perspiring and puffing, he had come from the other end of the shop amidst the growing emotion of the salesmen. The employees in the glove and silk departments had laughingly offered to relieve him of his burden, the men in the drapery and woollen departments had longed to see him make a false step, which would have scattered the gold all over the place. Then he had been obliged to mount the stairs, and cross a bridge and then go higher still, turning about amidst the longing looks of the employees of the linen, hosiery, and mercery departments, who gazed in ecstasy at this fortune travelling in the air. On the first-floor the mantle, perfumery, lace, and shawl employees were ranged devoutly as for the passage of the Blessed Sacrament. And from counter to counter a tumult arose, like the clamour of a nation bowing down before the Golden Calf.