Read Online The Ladies' Paradise (BBC tie-in) (Oxford World's Classics) by Emile Zola, Brian Nelson - Free Book Online Page A

and Robineau. Vinçard accompanied him to the door, saying oncemore how sorry he was. The girl had remained in the middle of the shop, intimidated, anxious to get more information from Robineau. But she did not dare, and said goodbye in her turn, adding simply:
    ‘Thank you, sir.’
    On the way back Baudu did not speak to his niece. He walked fast, forcing her to run, as if carried away by his thoughts. In the Rue de la Michodière he was about to go into his shop when a neighbouring shopkeeper, standing at his door, beckoned him over. Denise stopped to wait for him.
    ‘What is it, Bourras, old chap?’ asked the draper.
    Bourras was a tall old man with the head of a prophet, long-haired and bearded, and with piercing eyes under great bushy eyebrows. He sold walking-sticks and umbrellas, did repairs, and even carved handles, a skill which had earned him quite a reputation as an artist. Denise glanced at the shop-windows, where the umbrellas and walking-sticks were arranged in straight lines. But when she looked up she was astonished at the appearance of the house: it was a hovel squashed between the Ladies’ Paradise and a large Louis XIV mansion; its two low storeys were collapsing at the bottom of the narrow crevice where it had somehow sprung up. Without supports on each side it would have fallen down; the roof slates were crooked and rotten, and the two-windowed façade was scarred with cracks which ran down in long rusty lines over the worm-eaten signboard.
    ‘You know, he’s written to my landlord about buying the house,’ said Bourras, looking at the draper intently with his blazing eyes.
    Baudu became even paler, and bent his shoulders. There was a silence, during which the two men looked at each other very seriously.
    ‘You must be prepared for everything,’ Baudu murmured finally.
    At that the old man flew into a rage, shaking his hair and his flowing beard.
    ‘Let him buy the house, he’ll pay four times its value for it! But I swear that as long as I’m alive he won’t have a single stone of it. My lease has twelve years to run … We’ll see, we’ll see!’
    It was a declaration of war. Bourras turned towards the Ladies’ Paradise, which neither of them had named. Baudushook his head in silence, then crossed the street to his shop, his legs giving way, repeating only:
    ‘Oh! God! … Oh! God!’
    Denise, who had been listening, followed her uncle. Madame Baudu had just come back with Pépé, and she said at once that Madame Gras would take the child whenever they wanted. But Jean had just disappeared, which made his sister anxious. When he returned, his face flushed, talking excitedly about the boulevard, she looked at him in such a sad way that it made him blush. Their trunk had arrived and it was agreed that they would sleep in the attic.
    ‘By the way, how did you get on at Vinçard’s?’ asked Madame Baudu.
    The draper told her about his fruitless errand, adding that they had been told about a job for Denise; and, pointing towards the Ladies’ Paradise in a gesture of contempt, he cried out:
    ‘There—in there!’
    The whole family felt hurt at the idea. In the evening, the first meal was at five o’clock. Denise and the two children took their places again with Baudu, Geneviève, and Colomban. The small dining-room was lit by a gas jet, and the smell of food was stifling. They ate in silence, but during the dessert Madame Baudu, who was restless, left the shop to come and sit down behind her niece. And then the storm which had been brewing all morning broke, and they all relieved their feelings by abusing the monster.
    ‘It’s your business, you’re free to do what you want…,’ repeated Baudu. ‘We don’t want to influence you … But the sort of place it is …!’
    In broken sentences he told her the story of Octave Mouret. Wonderful luck! A lad from the Midi * who had turned up in Paris possessing all the attractive audacity of an adventurer; and, from the day he arrived,