Chapter 57

I discovered that Hubert allowed my mother to walk the streets of the city like a vagabond, all day on her feet, admiring the displays inside the boutiques, studying the cakes in the pastry shops, but never to make any purchase.

After all, there were enough clothes and food at home.

He allowed this because, even though his mind was always turned to his trade, he had by then realised that my mother was of no use in his business.

She was like an exotic animal, a rare jewel, and ultimately a frivolous purchase he had been tempted to make.

I'm sure he didn't regret marrying her. In fact, even though he treated her with condescension as if she was a child, he took good care of her, and seemed to regard her as an enjoyable pastime, and the crowning achievement that certified his success.

He was aware of the fact that his little poupette, as he called her, had enjoyed a more luxurious life before meeting him, so he was always careful to repeat to her how much healthier or refined the ascetic life he provided was, and he was always eager to dismiss the decadent excesses he imagined she had enjoyed in the past.

My mother, not wanting to displease him, always repeated that, for her, it was all the same.

Such was the attitude that my new stepfather had towards my mother, but, when he looked at me, he didn't see the same fragility. He certainly found no cause not to put me to work.

'While we decide what you want to do,' he said, not realising the absurdity of them deciding what I wanted to do, 'you can help me and Cosette with the shop.'

Mother quickly glanced at me, fearing a similar outburst to the ones I had had with Auguste LeClaire.

I, on my part, had no desire to upset my mother any further, and I felt very guilty that she had spent her last money so that I could spend a year at the institute, which had profited me very little.

I therefore consented without any resistance, and Mr. Martin lost no time: the next day, I was sent downstairs to the shop, so that Cosette could show me the ropes, as they call them.

The shop was quite dark for it was filled with fabric, ranged on many shelves, along many isles. The light coming in from the front windows penetrated but a few steps into the large room. There were no candles and no lamps, and I often had to search with my foot before making a step, lest I should trip on some disconnected floorboard.

The old woman had the habit of holding two conversations at one time: one was with her interlocutor, the other was with herself. She spent a good hour showing me the different types of yarn – silk, cotton, or wool – their weight and how fine each one was, the number of strands, the colours. Then, it was the turn of the fabrics – silk, cotton, velvet, cretonne, linen, chiffon, broadcloth, brocade. She showed me the embroidery, the lace, the ornaments.

Each item had a price, a way to measure it and cut it. Cosette knew it all.

She moved between the racks with her small, bent figure, reaching for a large roll, or kneeling down to rifle through samples.

She mentioned the names of the suppliers, the clients, the people in charge of the deliveries.

From time to time, she looked at me with her shrewd eyes and asked me if I understood.

All this was intermingled with her asides, where she seemed to curse every roll of fabric, every button, her lot in life. Nothing seemed to please her. Everything was either too slow or too fast, too heavy or devoid of quality.

Cosette now grabbed my hand and said:

'My, my… Not a callus. Very soft.'

I allowed all this, finding her at once humorous and pathetic.

How could my mother allow herself to life in such a place? And, I then began to ask myself, how was I to stay there too?

I wished I could take my mother away, but, as she had married Hubert, this seemed unlikely. Then, was I supposed to abandon her there and look for a better situation? This filled me with the guilt of leaving my poor mother behind – I say poor for she appeared to be not so well – and with dread over my future, which appeared to be uncertain.

It was obvious that no money would be spent on me from then on, and I feared that the plan that Mother and Mr. Martin had for me was to marry me to some local merchant.

I would not allow myself to follow in my mother's steps, in this regard. I would not marry a younger Mr. Martin: I had had a taste for the fun that people my age could find in this world, and I was not interested in turning my back to it.

As things were, I decided to bide my time and see how things turned out.

'Did you get it?' Cosette asked me, having finished the grand tour.

I nodded and watched her walk away, satisfied and exhausted after that lesson, hiding away in some corner of the shop.

Mr. Martin then called me.

He sat behind a great big desk at the entrance of the store. He asked me what I thought of his little shop, if I thought the fabrics were some of the best I had ever seen, maybe finer than any of the pretty things my mother had bought for me in the past. Then, without awaiting my answer, in his grandiloquent tone, he proceeded to tell me about how he had grown his commerce from a basket of buttons to the enviable business he now commanded.

He told me about his childhood, which, as he stressed out many times, must have been very different to mine. He had not been born from wealth. He had had to sleep outside, in the cold, many times, for his parents could not provide for their children.

Then, he began to run small errands for the local merchants, bringing a few bags of produce to the houses of the centre. He would get paid a sou for each of these errands.

'What do you think I did with those sous?' he asked me.

I said I didn't know.

He looked at me with the air of someone who's about to deliver a great hit:

'I invested them. I didn't waste them on pretty things. I purchased some potatoes, or some onions, or some apples, which I could get from the nearby farms, and then bring them to the city to sell for a small profit.'

I smiled and commanded his ingenuity.

Mr. Martin stroke his large belly, pleased with the effect he had reached.

He then asked me to sit next to him, so that I could assist him when customers came. In time, he would show me the books, how to order the goods and balance all the bills.

During the day, we saw but a couple of customers: these were poor tailors who could barely afford a few lengths of hemp. Each one complained about the quality of the product. Each one haggled on the price.

For each of these transactions, Cosette was sent to the back to choose different types of fabric, which she carried with great remonstrations. And, when the customers wanted to compare the different rolls she had brought over, this woman would hunch over them, taking much offence every time their fingers touched the fabric, or when they found fault with each one of them.

Eventually, a price was agreed, and Cosette would bring the items that hadn't been sold back, repeating over and over that those customers bought the cheapest option any way, and that there was no point in them asking for all those alternatives.

'Ah, ah,' Hubert guffawed. 'Do you know our profit on hemp?'

I said I didn't know.

My stepfather rubbed his belly again and said:

'Fifty percent. Twice as much as we make on silk. Ah, ah, they think they made a bargain. But who's smarter, eh? Old Martin, that's who.'

I smiled and nodded, even though I found those facts so mundane that I often had to pretend to look away, finding some detail of the shop very interesting, to hide a yawn.

That evening, we walked up to the apartment where Mr. Hubert, my mother, Cosette, and I lived.

Mr. Hubert announced that my first day had been a great success, to which my mother whispered that she was pleased, and then looked away, in that distracted fashion she had adopted, as if her body had been persuaded to marry Mr. Hubert and share the existence with him, but her soul was still pining for a life she no longer possessed.

This routine was repeated the next day: my mother left for her long, solitary walks, while Hubert, Cosette, and I spent long, empty hours in the poorly frequented store on the ground floor.

This was quite tedious. The house had no books that I could occupy my time with. Once or twice, Mr. Martin caught me sketching humorous pictures on some paper I found, and, in a rather piqued tone, said:

'My, my, what idle way to spend the time, and what a waste of good paper!'

So, I thought better not to repeat this experiment.

When I suggested I could possibly accompany my mother on her walks, once in a while, my mother asked me what for, and Mr. Martin scoffed at the little dedication that young people have towards hard work.

I truly wanted to answer him that selling two rolls of hemp in a day was scarcely hard, but I held my counsel. So, the next day, I was back in the store, sitting behind the desk of Mr. Martin, staring at the shelves, while that man told me once more of how he had started with a bucket of buttons, or how the profit on hemp is twice that of silk.

But this state of affairs didn't last as long as I feared.

Mr. Martin, little by little, seemed to warm up to me. He began to bring me some piece of fabric to show me a detail. He would then open up one of those records where he accounted for the profits and the losses of his trade, and he would show me the figures and explain to me the nature of each transaction.

As I poured my eyes over these specimens, he could feel his eyes studying me.

I wondered what he was thinking. He was maybe curious to get to know his wife's daughter, or, maybe, he had a secret design he was not prepared to share.

Once again, the fear of marriage with some modest shopkeeper ran through me.

One day, Mr. Martin asked Cosette to take my measurements. Then, showed me a few lengths of cloth he had selected, saying that he would ask a tailor who owed him money to make me some dresses.

Cosette and I walked to a back room, so that I could disrobe, and she could note the necessary information.

'The countess gets nice things…' Cosette mumbled as she unrolled the measuring tape.

'Nice things indeed,' I told the old woman with a sarcastic tone I couldn't suppress.

'What? Why is that?' she barked at me.

I smiled at her, not wanting to upset Mr. Martin's guard dog too much.

'Surely, you would have noticed those fabrics are hardly worth Mr. Martin's house. What would other people say when they saw his stepdaughter wearing such poor garments.'

Poor Cosette, fearing for her master's reputation, began to stutter, unable to say a word:

'Surely… surely… People know… Mr. Martin's a gentleman… Everyone knows… You're thankless… If I had your luck…'

I said I didn't mean anything by it, and that I only had Mr. Martin's good reputation in mind when I made that observation.

The old woman took my measurements without another word, but, when the dresses were presented to me a few days later, I was pleased to see that the fabric had been changed to a superior one.

'Only the best for my family,' Hubert announced, as he laid the clothes before me.

He then turned to my mother and asked for her opinion.

I noticed her face, normally quite serene, contort, and a look of spite appeared on it, as she looked at me harshly, but without saying a word.

'Don't worry, my poupette,' her husband rushed to add, 'it's high time we updated your wardrobe… Certainly, we will need to contain our expenses… But we can have some nice dresses made…'

My mother then looked away and said:

'For me, it's all the same.'

And she sat at the table and ate in her now customary silence.