The Ladies' Paradise (BBC tie-in) (Oxford World's Classics) by Emile Zola, Brian Nelson Page B

shoulders of flesh and blood, with a heaving breast and quivering hips. But the furnace-like heat with which the shop was ablaze came above all from the selling, from the bustle at the counters, which could be felt behind the walls. There was the continuous roar of the machine at work, of customers crowding into the departments, dazzled by the merchandise, then propelled towards the cash-desk. And it was all regulated and organized with the remorselessness of a machine: the vast horde of women were as if caught in the wheels of an inevitable force.
    Since the morning Denise had felt herself being tempted. She was bewildered and attracted by this shop, which looked so vast to her, and in which she saw more people in an hour than she had seen at Cornaille’s in six months; and in her desire to enter it there was a vague fear, which completed her seduction. At the same time her uncle’s shop made her ill at ease. She felt an irrational disdain, an instinctive repugnance for this icy little place where the old-fashioned methods of business still prevailed. All her sensations, her anxious entry, her relations’ sour welcome, the depressing lunch in the dungeon-like darkness, her long wait in the sleepy solitude of the old house doomed to decay—all this was combining to form a veiled protest, a passionate desire for life and light. And, in spite of her kindheart, her eyes kept turning back to the Ladies’ Paradise, as if the salesgirl in her felt the need to go and warm herself before the blaze of this huge sale.
    She let slip a remark:
    ‘They’ve got plenty of customers over there, at any rate!’
    But she regretted her words when she noticed the Baudus nearby. Madame Baudu, who had finished her lunch, was standing up, white as a sheet, her white eyes fixed on the monster; and, resigned though she was, she could not see it, could not catch sight of it on the other side of the street, without dumb despair filling her eyes with tears. As for Geneviève, she was anxiously watching Colomban, who, not thinking that he was being observed, stood in rapture, looking at the girls selling coats, whose department was visible through the mezzanine windows. Baudu, his face contorted with rage, contented himself by saying:
    ‘All that glisters is not gold. You just wait!’
    The thought of his family was evidently holding back the flood of resentment which was rising in his throat. A sense of pride prevented him from giving vent to his feelings so soon in front of the children, who had only arrived that morning. In the end, the draper made an effort, and turned round in order to tear himself away from the sight of the selling going on opposite.
    ‘Well,’ he went on, ‘let’s go and see Vinçard. Jobs are soon snatched up; tomorrow it may be too late.’
    But before going out he told the second assistant to go to the station to fetch Denise’s trunk. For her part Madame Baudu, to whom the girl had entrusted Pépé, decided that she would take advantage of a free moment by going over to see Madame Gras in the Rue des Orties to arrange about the child. Jean promised his sister that he would not leave the shop.
    ‘It’ll only take a couple of minutes,’ Baudu explained as he walked down the Rue Gaillon with his niece. ‘Vinçard specializes in silks, and he’s still doing a fair trade. Oh, he has his difficulties, like everyone else, but he’s artful and makes ends meet by being as stingy as he can. But I think he wants to retire, because of his rheumatism.’
    The shop was in the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, near the Passage Choiseul. It was clean and light, well fitted out in the modern style, but small and poorly stocked. Baudu and Denise found Vinçard deep in conference with two gentlemen.
    ‘Never mind us,’ the draper called out. ‘We’re not in a hurry, we’ll wait.’
    And, going tactfully back towards the door, he whispered in the girl’s ear:
    ‘The thin one’s at the Paradise, assistant buyer in the silk