The Ladies' Paradise

by Émile Zola

Denise finished by not answering the insults. It was all too odious, nobody would believe it. When any of her companions ventured a fresh allusion, she contented herself with looking at her with a sad, calm air. Besides, she had other troubles, material anxieties which took up her attention. Jean went on as badly as ever, always worrying her for money. Hardly a week passed that she did not receive some fresh story from him, four pages long; and when the house postman brought her these letters, in a big, passionate handwriting, she hastened to hide them in her pocket, for the saleswomen affected to laugh, and hummed snatches of some doubtful ditties. Then, after inventing some pretext to enable her to go to the other end of the establishment and read these letters, she became full of fear; poor Jean seemed to be lost. All his fibs succeeded with her, she believed in all his extraordinary love adventures, her complete ignorance of such things making her exaggerate his dangers. Sometimes it was a two-franc piece he wanted to enable him to escape some woman's jealousy, at other times five francs, six francs, to get some poor girl out of a scrape as her father would otherwise kill her. And so, as her salary and commission did not suffice, Denise conceived the idea of looking for a little work after business hours. She spoke about it to Robineau, who had shown a certain sympathy for her since their first meeting at Vinçard's, and he procured her the making of some neckties at five sous a dozen. At night, between nine and one o'clock, she could sew six dozen of these which represented thirty sous, out of which she had to deduct four sous for a candle. And as this sum kept Jean going she did not complain of the want of sleep, and would have thought herself very happy had not another catastrophe once more upset her budgetary calculations. At the end of the second fortnight, when she went to the necktie-dealer's, she found the door closed; the woman had failed, become bankrupt, thus carrying off her eighteen francs six sous, a considerable sum on which she had been relying for the last week. All the annoyances she experienced in the department disappeared before this disaster.

"You seem worried," said Pauline, meeting her one day in the furniture gallery, looking very pale. "Are you in want of anything?"

But as Denise already owed her friend twelve francs, she tried to smile and replied: "No, thanks. I've not slept well, that's all."

It was the twentieth of July, and the panic caused by the dismissals was at its height. Out of the four hundred employees, Bourdoncle had already sacked fifty, and there were rumours of fresh executions. She, however, thought but little of the menaces which were flying about, entirely absorbed as she was by the anguish caused her by one of Jean's adventures, an adventure yet more terrifying than any previous one. That very day he wanted fifteen francs, which sum alone could save him from somebody's vengeance. On the previous evening she had received the first letter opening the drama; then, one after the other had come two more; and in the last, the perusal of which she was finishing when Pauline met her, Jean had announced his death for that evening, if she did not send the money. She was in agony. She couldn't take the sum out of Pépé's board money as this she had paid away two days before. Every sort of bad luck was pursuing her, for she had hoped to get her eighteen francs six sous through Robineau, who might perhaps be able to find the necktie-dealer; but Robineau, having got a fortnight's holiday, had not returned on the previous night though expected to do so.

However, Pauline still questioned her in a friendly way. Whenever they met, in an out-of-the-way department, they would thus converse for a few minutes, keeping a sharp look-out the while. And suddenly, Pauline made a move as if to run off, having observed the white tie of an inspector coming out of the shawl department.

"Ah! it's only old Jouve!" she murmured in a relieved tone. "I can't think what makes the old man grin as he does when he sees us together. In your place I should beware, for he's too kind to you. He's an old humbug, as spiteful as a cat, and thinks he's still got his troopers to talk to."

This was quite true; Jouve was detested by all the salespeople for his severity. More than half the dismissals were the result of his reports; and, rakish ex-captain that he was, with a big red nose, he only shewed himself lenient in the departments served by women. Thus though he must have perceived Denise and Pauline he went away, pretending not to see them; and they heard him dropping on a salesman of the lace department, guilty of watching a fallen horse in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin.

"By the way," resumed Pauline, "weren't you looking for Monsieur Robineau yesterday? He's come back."

At this Denise thought herself saved. "Thanks," said she, "I'll go round the other way then, and pass through the silk department. So much the worse! They sent me upstairs to the work-room to fetch a bodkin."

And thereupon they separated. The young girl, with a busy look, as if she were running from pay-desk to pay-desk in search of something, reached the stairs and went down into the hall. It was a quarter to ten, the first lunch-bell had rung. A warm sun was playing on the windows, and in spite of the grey linen blinds, the heat penetrated the stagnant air. Now and then a refreshing breath arose from the floor, which some assistants were gently watering. A somnolence, a summer siesta reigned in all the vacant spaces around the counters, you might have thought yourself in a church wrapt in sleeping shadow after the last mass. Some salesmen were standing about listlessly, and a few rare customers crossed the galleries and the hall, with the indolent step of women annoyed by the sun.