"As for me," he said, "I can't complain as yet. Of course he has done me harm, the scoundrel! But up to the present he has only kept ladies' cloths, light stuffs for dresses and heavier goods for mantles. People still come to me for men's goods, velvets and velveteens for shooting suits, cloths for liveries, without speaking of flannels and _molletons_, of which I defy him to show so complete an assortment as my own. But he thinks he will annoy me by placing his cloth department right in front of my door. You've seen his display, haven't you? He always places his finest mantles there, surrounded by a framework of cloth in pieces--a cheapjack parade to tempt the hussies. Upon my word, I should be ashamed to use such means! The Old Elbeuf has been known for nearly a hundred years, and has no need of any such catchpenny devices at its door. As long as I live, it shall remain as I took it, with its four samples on each side, and nothing more!"
The whole family was becoming affected; and after a spell of silence Geneviève ventured to make a remark:
"Our customers know and like us, papa," said she. "We mustn't lose heart. Madame Desforges and Madame de Boves have been to-day, and I am expecting Madame Marty for some flannel."
"For my part," declared Colomban, "I took an order from Madame Bourdelais yesterday. 'Tis true she spoke of an English cheviot marked up opposite ten sous cheaper than ours, and the same stuff, it appears."
"Fancy," murmured Madame Baudu in her weak voice, "we knew that house when it was scarcely larger than a handkerchief! Yes, my dear Denise, when the Deleuzes started it, it had only one window in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin; and such a tiny one, there was barely room for a couple of pieces of print and two or three pieces of calico. There was no room to turn round in the shop, it was so small. At that time The Old Elbeuf, after sixty years' trading, was already such as you see it now. Ah! all has greatly changed, greatly changed!"
She shook her head; the drama of her whole life was expressed in those few words. Born in the old house, she loved each of its damp stones, living only for it and by it; and, formerly so proud of that house, the finest, the best patronised in the neighbourhood, she had had the daily grief of seeing the rival establishment gradually growing in importance, at first disdained, then equal to her own and finally towering above it, and threatening all. This was to her an ever-open sore; she was slowly dying from sheer grief at seeing The Old Elbeuf humiliated; if she still lived it was, as in the case of the shop itself, solely by the effect of impulsion; but she well realised that the death of the shop would be hers as well, and that she would pass away on the day when it should close.