The Ladies' Paradise. Emile Zola
a great deal of money, and Baudu had made things worse by buying a great lumbering country house, at Rambouillet, near his wife’s father’s place. Thus, a sharp, sour feeling was springing up in the honest old tradesman’s breast.
“You might have warned us,” resumed he, gradually getting angry at his own harshness. “You could have written; I should have told you to stay at Valognes. When I heard of your father’s death I said what is right on such occasions, but you drop down on us without a word of warning. It’s very awkward.”
He raised his voice, and that relieved him. His wife and daughter still kept their eyes on the ground, like submissive persons who would never think of interfering. However, whilst Jean had turned pale, Denise had hugged the terrified Pépé to her bosom. She dropped hot tears of disappointment.
“All right, uncle,” she said, “we’ll go away.”
At that he stopped, an awkward silence ensued. Then he resumed in a harsh tone: “I don’t mean to turn you out. As you are here you must stay the night; to-morrow we will see.”
Then Madame Baudu and Genevieve understood they were free to arrange matters. There was no need to trouble about Jean, as he was to commence his apprenticeship the next day. As for Pépé, he would be well looked after by Madame Gras, an old lady living in the Rue des Orties, who boarded and lodged young children for forty francs a month. Denise said she had sufficient to pay for the first month, and as for herself they could soon find her a situation in the neighbourhood, no doubt.
“Wasn’t Vinçard wanting a saleswoman?” asked Genevieve.
“Of course!” cried Baudu; “we’ll go and see him after lunch. Nothing like striking the iron while it’s hot.”
Not a customer had been in to interrupt this family discussion; the shop remained dark and empty. At the other end, the two young men and the young women were still working, talking in a low hissing tone amongst themselves. However, three ladies arrived, and Denise was left alone for a moment. She kissed Pépé with a swelling heart, at the thought of their approaching separation. The child, affectionate as a kitten, hid his head without saying a word. When Madame Baudu and Geneviève returned, they remarked how quiet he was. Denise assured them he never made any more noise than that, remaining for days together without speaking, living on kisses and caresses. Until lunch-time the three women sat and talked about children, housekeeping, life in Paris and life in the country, in short, vague sentences, like relations feeling rather awkward through not knowing one another very well. Jean had gone to the shop-door, and stood there watching the passing crowd and smiling at the pretty girls. At ten o’clock a servant appeared. As a rule the cloth was laid for Baudu, Genevieve, and the first-hand. A second lunch was served at eleven o’clock for Madame Baudu, the other young man, and the young woman.
“Come to lunch!” called out the draper, turning towards his niece.
And as all sat ready in the narrow dining-room behind the shop, he called the first-hand who had not come.
“Colomban!”
The young man apologised, having wished to finish arranging the flannels. He was a big, stout fellow of twenty-five, heavy and freckled, with an honest face, large weak mouth, and cunning eyes.
“There’s a time for everything,” said Baudu, solidly seated before a piece of cold veal, which he was carving with a master’s skill and prudence, weighing each piece at a glance to within an ounce.
He served everybody, and even cut up the bread. Denise had placed Pépé near her to see that he ate properly. But the dark close room made her feel uncomfortable. She thought it so small, after the large well-lighted rooms she had been accustomed to in the country. A single window opened on a small back-yard, which communicated with the street by a dark alley along the side of the house. And this yard, sodden and filthy, was like the bottom of a well into which a glimmer of light had fallen. In the winter they were obliged to keep the gas burning all day long. When the weather enabled them to do without gas it was duller still. Denise was several seconds before her eyes got sufficiently used to the light to distinguish the food on her plate.
“That young chap has a good appetite,” remarked Baudu, observing that Jean had finished his veal. “If he works as well as he eats, he’ll make a fine fellow. But you, my girl, you don’t eat. And, I say, now we can talk a bit, tell us why you didn’t get married at Valognes?”
Denise almost dropped the glass she had in her hand. “Oh! uncle – get married! How can you think of it? And the little ones!”
She was forced to laugh, it seemed to her such a strange idea. Besides, what man would care to have her – a girl without a sou, no fatter than a lath, and not at all pretty? No, no, she would never marry, she had quite enough children with her two brothers.
“You are wrong,” said her uncle; “a woman always needs a man. If you had found an honest young fellow, you wouldn’t have dropped on to the Paris pavement, you and your brothers, like a family of gipsies.”
He stopped, to divide with a parsimony full of justice, a dish of bacon and potatoes which the servant brought in. Then, pointing to Geneviève and Colomban with his spoon, he added: “Those two will be married next spring, if we have a good winter season.”
Such was the patriarchal custom of the house. The founder, Aristide Finet, had given his daughter, Désirée to his firsthand, Hauchecorne; he, Baudu, who had arrived in the Rue de la Michodière with seven francs in his pocket, had married old Hauchecorne’s daughter, Elizabeth; and he intended, in his turn, to hand over Geneviève and the business to Colomban as soon as trade should improve. If he thus delayed a marriage, decided on for three years past, it was by a scruple, an obstinate probity. He had received the business in a prosperous state, and did not wish to pass it on to his son-in-law less patronised or in a worse position than when he took it. Baudu continued, introducing Colomban, who came from Rambouillet, the same place as Madame Baudu’s father; in fact they were distant cousins. A hard-working fellow, who for ten years had slaved in the shop, fairly earning his promotions! Besides, he was far from being a nobody; he had for father that noted toper, Colomban, a veterinary surgeon, known all over the department of Seine-et-Oise, an artist in his line, but so fond of the flowing bowl that he was ruining himself.
“Thank heaven!” said the draper in conclusion, “if the father drinks and runs after the women, the son has learnt the value of money here.”
Whilst he was speaking Denise was examining Genevieve and Colomban. They sat close together at table, but remained very quiet, without a blush or a smile. From the day of his entry the young man had counted on this marriage. He had passed through the various stages: junior, counter-hand, etc., and had at last gained admittance into the confidence and pleasures of the family circle, all this patiently, and leading a clock-work style of life, looking upon this marriage with Geneviève as an excellent, convenient arrangement. The certainty of having her prevented him feeling any desire for her. And the young girl had also got to love him, but with the gravity of her reserved nature, and a real deep passion of which she herself was not aware, in her regular, monotonous daily life.
“Quite right, if they like each other, and can do it,” said Denise, smiling, considering it her duty to make herself agreeable.
“Yes, it always finishes like that,” declared Colomban, who had not spoken a word before, masticating slowly.
Geneviève, after giving him a long look, said in her turn: “When people understand each other, the rest comes naturally.”
Their tenderness had sprung up in this gloomy house of old Paris like a flower in a cellar. For ten years she had known no one but him, living by his side, behind the same bales of cloth, amidst the darkness of the shop; morning and evening they found themselves elbow to elbow in the narrow dining-room, so damp and dull. They could not have been more concealed, more utterly lost had they been in the country, in the woods. But a doubt, a jealous fear, began to suggest itself to the young girl, that she had given her hand, for ever, amidst this abetting solitude through sheer emptiness of heart and mental weariness.
However, Denise, having remarked a growing anxiety in the look Geneviève cast at Colomban, good-naturedly replied: “Oh! when