Bazar de l’hôtel de ville,
Fontainebleau.
I wonder how a description of this shop, the
largest in the town, would sound 50 years hence. You go through a rather narrow
vestibule, where soap, note-paper and ins, stud, etc. are displayed, into a
large hall, height of two stories, a wide staircase at back, wide galleries
round, and a roof of which the middle square is glazed. Cheap goods everywhere.
Drapery, silks, nails, ironmongery, glass and earthenware, leather good,
stationary on the ground floor; arranged on stalls and counters, in between
which are spaces for walking. In the basement, articles de menage. The staircase lined on either rail with lighter
articles of furniture. In the galleries, chiefly light furniture; extended on
the walls, showy carpets flowered, etc., at such prices as 49 fr. We went to
buy a screen. They had only one, four-fold, and we wanted three-fold. Ranged
below it were several toy screens. The price of the sole screen was 19 fr. Near
by were about a dozen cheap marble-top washstands. Wicker chairs and flimsy
tables about. Still you could buy
there almost everything (non-edible) that goes to the making of an ordinary
house. The frontage of the shop is of course an ordinary house frontage. The
shop itself must be a courtyard roofed over. It is in charge mainly of women.
Sitting high at the cash desk near the entrance are two controlling women – one
sharp and imperative in manner; with the table of electric switches at their
right hand. They look up from books to direct entering customers, and when they
know what customers want they call out a warning to the assistants within. Very
smiling, with a mechanical saccharine smile.
The bulk of the assistants are youngish
girls; some pretty, all dressed in black, with black aprons, scissors, etc.,
and blackish hands. They do not seem keen, but rather bored. Certainly the
wages must be low. Hours about 12 or 13 per day – that is to say, hours during
which the shop is open. Besides these, there are a few men, who wear black
smocks, and attend to furniture, ironmongery and similar departments. One of
these, with one girl, is always at the étalage
[display] at the front, where trinkets and souvenirs and post cards are
exposed. Men seem even more discontented than the girls. I never saw any one
there who looked like a proprietor or supreme boss. The whole shop is modelled
on the big general shops in Paris. There are similar shops now in most provincial
towns. In Toulouse there were half a dozen splendid ones.
In all, the conditions of labour are
disgusting to the social conscience., though probably better than in ataliers. There is a feeling of cutting
down expenditure, especially wages, in order to sell cheaply, while making a
good profit. A feeling that everybody concerned is secretly at the beginning of
a revolt, and that the organisation of the whole organism are keeping out of
the way. Yes, there is certainly this feeling! I am always uneasy when in such
shops, as if I too were guilty for what is wrong in them. Of course nearly all
shops are on the same basis of sweating, but in some it is masked in
magnificence, so that one has to search for it.
A handful of customers always in, and a
continuous movement near the entrance.
At closing time the étalage has to be carried in, and there is left a prodigious litter
of bits of paper which has to be swept up. Then early in the morning (less than
12 hours after closing) there is the refixing an arrangement of the étalage, and the gradual recommencement
of the day.
Some of the women have a certain coquetterie, But not the young ones; the
controlling women of 40 or so. These have the air of always being equal to the
situation, but they are not. I remember once half the staff (it seemed) was
worsted in an attempt to make a bicycle pump work that I had bought. They all
conspired to convince me that it was quite in order, but I beat them, and they
had to take the pump back. One of the controlling women began on a note of
omniscient condescension to me, but she gradually lost her assurance, and fled.
A man would not so easily have done that.
Arnold Bennett's Journal, Monday, September 20th 1909
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