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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of L'Assommoir, by Émile Zola
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: L'Assommoir
+
+Author: Émile Zola
+
+Translator: John Stirling
+
+Release Date: July 23, 2003 [eBook #8558]
+[Most recently updated: July 5, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Cam Venezuela, Earle Beach, Eric Eldred, and the Distributed Online Proofing Team
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK L'ASSOMMOIR ***
+
+
+
+
+L'ASSOMMOIR
+
+By Émile Zola
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+GERVAISE
+
+
+Gervaise had waited and watched for Lantier until two in the morning.
+Then chilled and shivering, she turned from the window and threw
+herself across the bed, where she fell into a feverish doze with her
+cheeks wet with tears. For the last week when they came out of the
+Veau a Deux Tetes, where they ate, he had sent her off to bed with the
+children and had not appeared until late into the night and always
+with a story that he had been looking for work.
+
+This very night, while she was watching for his return, she fancied
+she saw him enter the ballroom of the Grand-Balcon, whose ten windows
+blazing with lights illuminated, as with a sheet of fire, the black
+lines of the outer boulevards. She caught a glimpse of Adele, a pretty
+brunette who dined at their restaurant and who was walking a few steps
+behind him, with her hands swinging as if she had just dropped his
+arm, rather than pass before the bright light of the globes over the
+door in his company.
+
+When Gervaise awoke about five o'clock, stiff and sore, she burst into
+wild sobs, for Lantier had not come in. For the first time he had
+slept out. She sat on the edge of the bed, half shrouded in the canopy
+of faded chintz that hung from the arrow fastened to the ceiling by a
+string. Slowly, with her eyes suffused with tears, she looked around
+this miserable _chambre garnie_, whose furniture consisted of a
+chestnut bureau of which one drawer was absent, three straw chairs
+and a greasy table on which was a broken-handled pitcher.
+
+Another bedstead--an iron one--had been brought in for the children.
+This stood in front of the bureau and filled up two thirds of the
+room.
+
+A trunk belonging to Gervaise and Lantier stood in the corner wide
+open, showing its empty sides, while at the bottom a man's old hat lay
+among soiled shirts and hose. Along the walls and on the backs of the
+chairs hung a ragged shawl, a pair of muddy pantaloons and a dress or
+two--all too bad for the old-clothes man to buy. In the middle of the
+mantel between two mismated tin candlesticks was a bundle of pawn
+tickets from the Mont-de-Piete. These tickets were of a delicate shade
+of rose.
+
+The room was the best in the hotel--the first floor looking out on the
+boulevard.
+
+Meanwhile side by side on the same pillow the two children lay calmly
+sleeping. Claude, who was eight years old, was breathing calmly and
+regularly with his little hands outside of the coverings, while
+Etienne, only four, smiled with one arm under his brother's neck.
+
+When their mother's eyes fell on them she had a new paroxysm of sobs
+and pressed her handkerchief to her mouth to stifle them. Then with
+bare feet, not stopping to put on her slippers which had fallen off,
+she ran to the window out of which she leaned as she had done half the
+night and inspected the sidewalks as far as she could see.
+
+The hotel was on the Boulevard de la Chapelle, at the left of the
+Barriere Poissonniers. It was a two-story building, painted a deep red
+up to the first floor, and had disjointed weather-stained blinds.
+
+Above a lantern with glass sides was a sign between the two windows:
+
+HOTEL BONCŒUR
+KEPT BY
+MARSOULLIER
+
+in large yellow letters, partially obliterated by the dampness.
+Gervaise, who was prevented by the lantern from seeing as she desired,
+leaned out still farther, with her handkerchief on her lips. She
+looked to the right toward the Boulevard de Rochechouart, where
+groups of butchers stood with their bloody frocks before their
+establishments, and the fresh breeze brought in whiffs, a strong
+animal smell--the smell of slaughtered cattle.
+
+She looked to the left, following the ribbonlike avenue, past the
+Hospital de Lariboisière, then building. Slowly, from one end to the
+other of the horizon, did she follow the wall, from behind which in
+the nightime she had heard strange groans and cries, as if some fell
+murder were being perpetrated. She looked at it with horror, as if in
+some dark corner--dark with dampness and filth--she should distinguish
+Lantier--Lantier lying dead with his throat cut.
+
+When she gazed beyond this gray and interminable wall she saw a great
+light, a golden mist waving and shimmering with the dawn of a new
+Parisian day. But it was to the Barriere Poissonniers that her eyes
+persistently returned, watching dully the uninterrupted flow of men
+and cattle, wagons and sheep, which came down from Montmartre and
+from La Chapelle. There were scattered flocks dashed like waves on
+the sidewalk by some sudden detention and an endless succession of
+laborers going to their work with their tools over their shoulders
+and their loaves of bread under their arms.
+
+Suddenly Gervaise thought she distinguished Lantier amid this crowd,
+and she leaned eagerly forward at the risk of falling from the window.
+With a fresh pang of disappointment she pressed her handkerchief to
+her lips to restrain her sobs.
+
+A fresh, youthful voice caused her to turn around.
+
+"Lantier has not come in then?"
+
+"No, Monsieur Coupeau," she answered, trying to smile.
+
+The speaker was a tinsmith who occupied a tiny room at the top of the
+house. His bag of tools was over his shoulder; he had seen the key in
+the door and entered with the familiarity of a friend.
+
+"You know," he continued, "that I am working nowadays at the hospital.
+What a May this is! The air positively stings one this morning."
+
+As he spoke he looked closely at Gervaise; he saw her eyes were red
+with tears and then, glancing at the bed, discovered that it had not
+been disturbed. He shook his head and, going toward the couch where
+the children lay with their rosy cherub faces, he said in a lower
+voice:
+
+"You think your husband ought to have been with you, madame. But don't
+be troubled; he is busy with politics. He went on like a mad man the
+other day when they were voting for Eugène Sue. Perhaps he passed the
+night with his friends abusing that reprobate Bonaparte."
+
+"No, no," she murmured with an effort. "You think nothing of that kind.
+I know where Lantier is only too well. We have our sorrows like the
+rest of the world!"
+
+Coupeau gave a knowing wink and departed, having offered to bring her
+some milk if she did not care to go out; she was a good woman, he told
+her and might count on him any time when she was in trouble.
+
+As soon as Gervaise was alone she returned to the window.
+
+From the Barriere the lowing of the cattle and the bleating of the
+sheep still came on the keen, fresh morning air. Among the crowd she
+recognized the locksmiths by their blue frocks, the masons by their
+white overalls, the painters by their coats, from under which hung
+their blouses. This crowd was cheerless. All of neutral tints--grays
+and blues predominating, with never a dash of color. Occasionally a
+workman stopped and lighted his pipe, while his companions passed on.
+There was no laughing, no talking, but they strode on steadily with
+cadaverous faces toward that Paris which quickly swallowed them up.
+
+At the two corners of La Rue des Poissonniers were two wineshops,
+where the shutters had just been taken down. Here some of the workmen
+lingered, crowding into the shop, spitting, coughing and drinking
+glasses of brandy and water. Gervaise was watching the place on the
+left of the street, where she thought she had seen Lantier go in, when
+a stout woman, bareheaded and wearing a large apron, called to her
+from the pavement,
+
+"You are up early, Madame Lantier!"
+
+Gervaise leaned out.
+
+"Ah, is it you, Madame Boche! Yes, I am up early, for I have much to
+do today."
+
+"Is that so? Well, things don't get done by themselves, that's sure!"
+
+And a conversation ensued between the window and the sidewalk. Mme
+Boche was the concierge of the house wherein the restaurant Veau a
+Deux Tetes occupied the _rez-de-chaussee_.
+
+Many times Gervaise had waited for Lantier in the room of this woman
+rather than face the men who were eating. The concierge said she had
+just been round the corner to arouse a lazy fellow who had promised to
+do some work and then went on to speak of one of her lodgers who had
+come in the night before with some woman and had made such a noise
+that every one was disturbed until after three o'clock.
+
+As she gabbled, however, she examined Gervaise with considerable
+curiosity and seemed, in fact, to have come out under the window for
+that express purpose.
+
+"Is Monsieur Lantier still asleep?" she asked suddenly.
+
+"Yes, he is asleep," answered Gervaise with flushing cheeks.
+
+Madame saw the tears come to her eyes and, satisfied with her
+discovery, was turning away when she suddenly stopped and called out:
+
+"You are going to the lavatory this morning, are you not? All right
+then, I have some things to wash, and I will keep a place for you next
+to me, and we can have a little talk!"
+
+Then as if moved by sudden compassion, she added:
+
+"Poor child, don't stay at that window any longer. You are purple with
+cold and will surely make yourself sick!"
+
+But Gervaise did not move. She remained in the same spot for two
+mortal hours, until the clock struck eight. The shops were now
+all open. The procession in blouses had long ceased, and only an
+occasional one hurried along. At the wineshops, however, there was
+the same crowd of men drinking, spitting and coughing. The workmen in
+the street had given place to the workwomen. Milliners' apprentices,
+florists, burnishers, who with thin shawls drawn closely around them
+came in bands of three or four, talking eagerly, with gay laughs
+and quick glances. Occasionally one solitary figure was seen, a
+pale-faced, serious woman, who walked rapidly, neither looking to
+the right nor to the left.
+
+Then came the clerks, blowing on their fingers to warm them, eating a
+roll as they walked; young men, lean and tall, with clothing they had
+outgrown and with eyes heavy with sleep; old men, who moved along with
+measured steps, occasionally pulling out their watches, but able, from
+many years' practice, to time their movements almost to a second.
+
+The boulevards at last were comparatively quiet. The inhabitants were
+sunning themselves. Women with untidy hair and soiled petticoats were
+nursing their babies in the open air, and an occasional dirty-faced
+brat fell into the gutter or rolled over with shrieks of pain or joy.
+
+Gervaise felt faint and ill; all hope was gone. It seemed to her that
+all was over and that Lantier would come no more. She looked from the
+dingy slaughterhouses, black with their dirt and loathsome odor, on to
+the new and staring hospital and into the rooms consecrated to disease
+and death. As yet the windows were not in, and there was nothing to
+impede her view of the large, empty wards. The sun shone directly in
+her face and blinded her.
+
+She was sitting on a chair with her arms dropping drearily at her side
+but not weeping, when Lantier quietly opened the door and walked in.
+
+"You have come!" she cried, ready to throw herself on his neck.
+
+"Yes, I have come," he answered, "and what of it? Don't begin any
+of your nonsense now!" And he pushed her aside. Then with an angry
+gesture he tossed his felt hat on the bureau.
+
+He was a small, dark fellow, handsome and well made, with a delicate
+mustache which he twisted in his fingers mechanically as he spoke.
+He wore an old coat, buttoned tightly at the waist, and spoke with
+a strongly marked Provencal accent.
+
+Gervaise had dropped upon her chair again and uttered disjointed
+phrases of lamentation.
+
+"I have not closed my eyes--I thought you were killed! Where have you
+been all night? I feel as if I were going mad! Tell me, Auguste, where
+have you been?"
+
+"Oh, I had business," he answered with an indifferent shrug of his
+shoulders. "At eight o'clock I had an engagement with that friend,
+you know, who is thinking of starting a manufactory of hats. I was
+detained, and I preferred stopping there. But you know I don't like
+to be watched and catechized. Just let me alone, will you?"
+
+His wife began to sob. Their voices and Lantier's noisy movements as
+he pushed the chairs about woke the children. They started up, half
+naked with tumbled hair, and hearing their mother cry, they followed
+her example, rending the air with their shrieks.
+
+"Well, this is lovely music!" cried Lantier furiously. "I warn you,
+if you don't all stop, that out of this door I go, and you won't see
+me again in a hurry! Will you hold your tongue? Good-by then; I'll
+go back where I came from."
+
+He snatched up his hat, but Gervaise rushed toward him, crying:
+
+"No! No!"
+
+And she soothed the children and stifled their cries with kisses and
+laid them tenderly back in their bed, and they were soon happy and
+merrily playing together. Meanwhile the father, not even taking off
+his boots, threw himself on the bed with a weary air. His face was
+white from exhaustion and a sleepless night; he did not close his
+eyes but looked around the room.
+
+"A nice-looking place, this!" he muttered.
+
+Then examining Gervaise, he said half aloud and half to himself:
+
+"So! You have given up washing yourself, it seems!"
+
+Gervaise was only twenty-two. She was tall and slender with delicate
+features, already worn by hardships and anxieties. With her hair
+uncombed and shoes down at the heel, shivering in her white sack, on
+which was much dust and many stains from the furniture and wall where
+it had hung, she looked at least ten years older from the hours of
+suspense and tears she had passed.
+
+Lantier's word startled her from her resignation and timidity.
+
+"Are you not ashamed?" she said with considerable animation. "You know
+very well that I do all I can. It is not my fault that we came here.
+I should like to see you with two children in a place where you can't
+get a drop of hot water. We ought as soon as we reached Paris to have
+settled ourselves at once in a home; that was what you promised."
+
+"Pshaw," he muttered; "You had as much good as I had out of our
+savings. You ate the fatted calf with me--and it is not worth while
+to make a row about it now!"
+
+She did not heed his word but continued:
+
+"There is no need of giving up either. I saw Madame Fauconnier, the
+laundress in La Rue Neuve. She will take me Monday. If you go in with
+your friend we shall be afloat again in six months. We must find some
+kind of a hole where we can live cheaply while we work. That is the
+thing to do now. Work! Work!"
+
+Lantier turned his face to the wall with a shrug of disgust which
+enraged his wife, who resumed:
+
+"Yes, I know very well that you don't like to work. You would like to
+wear fine clothes and walk about the streets all day. You don't like
+my looks since you took all my dresses to the pawnbrokers. No, no,
+Auguste, I did not intend to speak to you about it, but I know very
+well where you spent the night. I saw you go into the Grand-Balcon
+with that streetwalker Adele. You have made a charming choice. She
+wears fine clothes and is clean. Yes, and she has reason to be,
+certainly; there is not a man in that restaurant who does not know
+her far better than an honest girl should be known!"
+
+Lantier leaped from the bed. His eyes were as black as night and his
+face deadly pale.
+
+"Yes," repeated his wife, "I mean what I say. Madame Boche will not
+keep her or her sister in the house any longer, because there are
+always a crowd of men hanging on the staircase."
+
+Lantier lifted both fists, and then conquering a violent desire to
+beat her, he seized her in his arms, shook her violently and threw her
+on the bed where the children were. They at once began to cry again
+while he stood for a moment, and then, with the air of a man who
+finally takes a resolution in regard to which he has hesitated, he
+said:
+
+"You do not know what you have done, Gervaise. You are wrong--as you
+will soon discover."
+
+For a moment the voices of the children filled the room. Their mother,
+lying on their narrow couch, held them both in her arms and said over
+and over again in a monotonous voice:
+
+"If you were not here, my poor darlings! If you were not here! If you
+were not here!"
+
+Lantier was lying flat on his back with his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
+He was not listening; his attention was concentrated on some fixed
+idea. He remained in this way for an hour and more, not sleeping, in
+spite of his evident and intense fatigue. When he turned and, leaning
+on his elbow, looked about the room again, he found that Gervaise had
+arranged the chamber and made the children's bed. They were washed
+and dressed. He watched her as she swept the room and dusted the
+furniture.
+
+The room was very dreary still, however, with its smoke-stained
+ceiling and paper discolored by dampness and three chairs and
+dilapidated bureau, whose greasy surface no dusting could clean.
+Then while she washed herself and arranged her hair before the small
+mirror, he seemed to examine her arms and shoulders, as if instituting
+a comparison between herself and someone else. And he smiled a
+disdainful little smile.
+
+Gervaise was slightly, very slightly, lame, but her lameness was
+perceptible, only on such days as she was very tired. This morning,
+so weary was she from the watches of the night, that she could hardly
+walk without support.
+
+A profound silence reigned in the room; they did not speak to each
+other. He seemed to be waiting for something. She, adopting an
+unconcerned air, seemed to be in haste.
+
+She made up a bundle of soiled linen that had been thrown into a
+corner behind the trunk, and then he spoke:
+
+"What are you doing? Are you going out?"
+
+At first she did not reply. Then when he angrily repeated the question
+she answered:
+
+"Certainly I am. I am going to wash all these things. The children
+cannot live in dirt."
+
+He threw two or three handkerchiefs toward her, and after another long
+silence he said:
+
+"Have you any money?"
+
+She quickly rose to her feet and turned toward him; in her hand she
+held some of the soiled clothes.
+
+"Money! Where should I get money unless I had stolen it? You know very
+well that day before yesterday you got three francs on my black skirt.
+We have breakfasted twice on that, and money goes fast. No, I have no
+money. I have four sous for the lavatory. I cannot make money like
+other women we know."
+
+He did not reply to this allusion but rose from the bed and passed in
+review the ragged garments hung around the room. He ended by taking
+down the pantaloons and the shawl and, opening the bureau, took out a
+sack and two chemises. All these he made into a bundle, which he threw
+at Gervaise.
+
+"Take them," he said, "and make haste back from the pawnbroker's."
+
+"Would you not like me to take the children?" she asked. "Heavens! If
+pawnbrokers would only make loans on children, what a good thing it
+would be!"
+
+She went to the Mont-de-Piete, and when she returned a half-hour later
+she laid a silver five-franc piece on the mantelshelf and placed the
+ticket with the others between the two candlesticks.
+
+"This is what they gave me," she said coldly. "I wanted six francs,
+but they would not give them. They always keep on the safe side there,
+and yet there is always a crowd."
+
+Lantier did not at once take up the money. He had sent her to the
+Mont-de-Piete that he might not leave her without food or money, but
+when he caught sight of part of a ham wrapped in paper on the table
+with half a loaf of bread he slipped the silver piece into his vest
+pocket.
+
+"I did not dare go to the milk woman," explained Gervaise, "because
+we owe her for eight days. But I shall be back early. You can get some
+bread and some chops and have them ready. Don't forget the wine too."
+
+He made no reply. Peace seemed to be made, but when Gervaise went to
+the trunk to take out some of Lantier's clothing he called out:
+
+"No--let that alone."
+
+"What do you mean?" she said, turning round in surprise. "You can't
+wear these things again until they are washed! Why shall I not take
+them?"
+
+And she looked at him with some anxiety. He angrily tore the things
+from her hands and threw them back into the trunk.
+
+"Confound you!" he muttered. "Will you never learn to obey? When I say
+a thing I mean it--"
+
+"But why?" she repeated, turning very pale and seized with a terrible
+suspicion. "You do not need these shirts; you are not going away. Why
+should I not take them?"
+
+He hesitated a moment, uneasy under the earnest gaze she fixed upon
+him. "Why? Why? Because," he said, "I am sick of hearing you say that
+you wash and mend for me. Attend to your own affairs, and I will
+attend to mine."
+
+She entreated him, defended herself from the charge of ever having
+complained, but he shut the trunk with a loud bang and then sat down
+upon it, repeating that he was master at least of his own clothing.
+Then to escape from her eyes, he threw himself again on the bed,
+saying he was sleepy and that she made his head ache, and finally
+slept or pretended to do so.
+
+Gervaise hesitated; she was tempted to give up her plan of going to
+the lavatory and thought she would sit down to her sewing. But at last
+she was reassured by Lantier's regular breathing; she took her soap
+and her ball of bluing and, going to the children, who were playing
+on the floor with some old corks, she said in a low voice:
+
+"Be very good and keep quiet. Papa is sleeping."
+
+When she left the room there was not a sound except the stifled
+laughter of the little ones. It was then after ten, and the sun was
+shining brightly in at the window.
+
+Gervaise, on reaching the boulevard, turned to the left and followed
+the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. As she passed Mme Fauconnier's shop she
+nodded to the woman. The lavatory, whither she went, was in the middle
+of this street, just where it begins to ascend. Over a large low
+building towered three enormous reservoirs for water, huge cylinders
+of zinc strongly made, and in the rear was the drying room, an
+apartment with a very high ceiling and surrounded by blinds through
+which the air passed. On the right of the reservoirs a steam engine
+let off regular puffs of white smoke. Gervaise, habituated apparently
+to puddles, did not lift her skirts but threaded her way through the
+part of _eau de Javelle_ which encumbered the doorway. She knew
+the mistress of the establishment, a delicate woman who sat in a
+cabinet with glass doors, surrounded by soap and bluing and packages
+of bicarbonate of soda.
+
+As Gervaise passed the desk she asked for her brush and beater, which
+she had left to be taken care of after her last wash. Then having
+taken her number, she went in. It was an immense shed, as it were,
+with a low ceiling--the beams and rafters unconcealed--and lighted by
+large windows, through which the daylight streamed. A light gray mist
+or steam pervaded the room, which was filled with a smell of soapsuds
+and _eau de Javelle_ combined. Along the central aisle were tubs
+on either side, and two rows of women with their arms bare to the
+shoulders and their skirts tucked up stood showing their colored
+stockings and stout laced shoes.
+
+They rubbed and pounded furiously, straightening themselves
+occasionally to utter a sentence and then applying themselves again
+to their task, with the steam and perspiration pouring down their red
+faces. There was a constant rush of water from the faucets, a great
+splashing as the clothes were rinsed and pounding and banging of the
+beaters, while amid all this noise the steam engine in the corner kept
+up its regular puffing.
+
+Gervaise went slowly up the aisle, looking to the right and the left.
+She carried her bundle under her arm and limped more than usual, as
+she was pushed and jarred by the energy of the women about her.
+
+"Here! This way, my dear," cried Mme Boche, and when the young woman
+had joined her at the very end where she stood, the concierge, without
+stopping her furious rubbing, began to talk in a steady fashion.
+
+"Yes, this is your place. I have kept it for you. I have not much to
+do. Boche is never hard on his linen, and you, too, do not seem to
+have much. Your package is quite small. We shall finish by noon, and
+then we can get something to eat. I used to give my clothes to a woman
+in La Rue Pelat, but bless my heart, she washed and pounded them all
+away, and I made up my mind to wash myself. It is clear gain, you see,
+and costs only the soap."
+
+Gervaise opened her bundle and sorted the clothes, laying aside all
+the colored pieces, and when Mme Boche advised her to try a little
+soda she shook her head.
+
+"No, no!" she said. "I know all about it!"
+
+"You know?" answered Boche curiously. "You have washed then in your
+own place before you came here?"
+
+Gervaise, with her sleeves rolled up, showing her pretty, fair arms,
+was soaping a child's shirt. She rubbed it and turned it, soaped and
+rubbed it again. Before she answered she took up her beater and began
+to use it, accenting each phrase or rather punctuating them with her
+regular blows.
+
+"Yes, yes, washed--I should think I had! Ever since I was ten years
+old. We went to the riverside, where I came from. It was much nicer
+than here. I wish you could see it--a pretty corner under the trees
+by the running water. Do you know Plassans? Near Marseilles?"
+
+"You are a strong one, anyhow!" cried Mme Boche, astonished at the
+rapidity and strength of the woman. "Your arms are slender, but they
+are like iron."
+
+The conversation continued until all the linen was well beaten and
+yet whole! Gervaise then took each piece separately, rinsed it, then
+rubbed it with soap and brushed it. That is to say, she held the cloth
+firmly with one hand and with the other moved the short brush from
+her, pushing along a dirty foam which fell off into the water below.
+
+As she brushed they talked.
+
+"No, we are not married," said Gervaise. "I do not intend to lie about
+it. Lantier is not so nice that a woman need be very anxious to be
+his wife. If it were not for the children! I was fourteen and he was
+eighteen when the first one was born. The other child did not come for
+four years. I was not happy at home. Papa Macquart, for the merest
+trifle, would beat me. I might have married, I suppose."
+
+She dried her hands, which were red under the white soapsuds.
+
+"The water is very hard in Paris," she said.
+
+Mme Boche had finished her work long before, but she continued to
+dabble in the water merely as an excuse to hear this story, which for
+two weeks had excited her curiosity. Her mouth was open, and her eyes
+were shining with satisfaction at having guessed so well.
+
+"Oh yes, just as I knew," she said to herself, "but the little woman
+talks too much! I was sure, though, there had been a quarrel."
+
+Then aloud:
+
+"He is not good to you then?"
+
+"He was very good to me once," answered Gervaise, "but since we came
+to Paris he has changed. His mother died last year and left him about
+seventeen hundred francs. He wished to come to Paris, and as Father
+Macquart was in the habit of hitting me in the face without any
+warning, I said I would come, too, which we did, with the two
+children. I meant to be a fine laundress, and he was to continue with
+his trade as a hatter. We might have been very happy. But, you see,
+Lantier is extravagant; he likes expensive things and thinks of his
+amusement before anything else. He is not good for much, anyhow!
+
+"We arrived at the Hotel Montmartre. We had dinners and carriages,
+suppers and theaters, a watch for him, a silk dress for me--for he is
+not selfish when he has money. You can easily imagine, therefore, at
+the end of two months we were cleaned out. Then it was that we came
+to Hotel Boncœur and that this life began." She checked herself with
+a strange choking in the throat. Tears gathered in her eyes. She
+finished brushing her linen.
+
+"I must get my scalding water," she murmured.
+
+But Mme Boche, much annoyed at this sudden interruption to the
+long-desired confidence, called the boy.
+
+"Charles," she said, "it would be very good of you if you would bring
+a pail of hot water to Madame Lantier, as she is in a great hurry."
+The boy brought a bucketful, and Gervaise paid him a sou. It was a sou
+for each bucket. She turned the hot water into her tub and soaked her
+linen once more and rubbed it with her hands while the steam hovered
+round her blonde head like a cloud.
+
+"Here, take some of this," said the concierge as she emptied into the
+water that Gervaise was using the remains of a package of bicarbonate
+of soda. She offered her also some _eau de Javelle_, but the
+young woman refused. It was only good, she said, for grease spots
+and wine stains.
+
+"I thought him somewhat dissipated," said Mme Boche, referring to
+Lantier without naming him.
+
+Gervaise, leaning over her tub and her arms up to the elbows in the
+soapsuds, nodded in acquiescence.
+
+"Yes," continued the concierge, "I have seen many little things."
+But she started back as Gervaise turned round with a pale face and
+quivering lips.
+
+"Oh, I know nothing," she continued. "He likes to laugh--that is
+all--and those two girls who are with us, you know, Adele and
+Virginie, like to laugh too, so they have their little jokes together,
+but that is all there is of it, I am sure."
+
+The young woman, with the perspiration standing on her brow and
+her arms still dripping, looked her full in the face with earnest,
+inquiring eyes.
+
+Then the concierge became excited and struck her breast, exclaiming:
+
+"I tell you I know nothing whatever, nothing more than I tell you!"
+
+Then she added in a gentle voice, "But he has honest eyes, my dear.
+He will marry you, child; I promise that he will marry you!"
+
+Gervaise dried her forehead with her damp hand and shook her head.
+The two women were silent for a moment; around them, too, it was very
+quiet. The clock struck eleven. Many of the women were seated swinging
+their feet, drinking their wine and eating their sausages, sandwiched
+between slices of bread. An occasional economical housewife hurried
+in with a small bundle under her arm, and a few sounds of the pounder
+were still heard at intervals; sentences were smothered in the full
+mouths, or a laugh was uttered, ending in a gurgling sound as the wine
+was swallowed, while the great machine puffed steadily on. Not one
+of the women, however, heard it; it was like the very respiration of
+the lavatory--the eager breath that drove up among the rafters the
+floating vapor that filled the room.
+
+The heat gradually became intolerable. The sun shone in on the left
+through the high windows, imparting to the vapor opaline tints--the
+palest rose and tender blue, fading into soft grays. When the women
+began to grumble the boy Charles went from one window to the other,
+drawing down the heavy linen shades. Then he crossed to the other
+side, the shady side, and opened the blinds. There was a general
+exclamation of joy--a formidable explosion of gaiety.
+
+All this time Gervaise was going on with her task and had just
+completed the washing of her colored pieces, which she threw over a
+trestle to drip; soon small pools of blue water stood on the floor.
+Then she began to rinse the garments in cold water which ran from a
+spigot near by.
+
+"You have nearly finished," said Mme Boche. "I am waiting to help you
+wring them."
+
+"Oh, you are very good! It is not necessary though!" answered the
+young woman as she swashed the garments through the clear water. "If
+I had sheets I would not refuse your offer, however."
+
+Nevertheless, she accepted the aid of the concierge. They took up a
+brown woolen skirt, badly faded, from which poured out a yellow stream
+as the two women wrung it together.
+
+Suddenly Mme Boche cried out:
+
+"Look! There comes big Virginie! She is actually coming here to wash
+her rags tied up in a handkerchief."
+
+Gervaise looked up quickly. Virginie was a woman about her own age,
+larger and taller than herself, a brunette and pretty in spite of the
+elongated oval of her face. She wore an old black dress with flounces
+and a red ribbon at her throat. Her hair was carefully arranged and
+massed in a blue chenille net.
+
+She hesitated a moment in the center aisle and half shut her eyes,
+as if looking for something or somebody, but when she distinguished
+Gervaise she went toward her with a haughty, insolent air and
+supercilious smile and finally established herself only a short
+distance from her.
+
+"That is a new notion!" muttered Mme Boche in a low voice. "She was
+never known before to rub out even a pair of cuffs. She is a lazy
+creature, I do assure you. She never sews the buttons on her boots.
+She is just like her sister, that minx of an Adele, who stays away
+from the shop two days out of three. What is she rubbing now? A skirt,
+is it? It is dirty enough, I am sure!"
+
+It was clear that Mme Boche wished to please Gervaise. The truth was
+she often took coffee with Adele and Virginie when the two sisters
+were in funds. Gervaise did not reply but worked faster than before.
+She was now preparing her bluing water in a small tub standing on
+three legs. She dipped in her pieces, shook them about in the colored
+water, which was almost a lake in hue, and then, wringing them, she
+shook them out and threw them lightly over the high wooden bars.
+
+While she did this she kept her back well turned on big Virginie. But
+she felt that the girl was looking at her, and she heard an occasional
+derisive sniff. Virginie, in fact, seemed to have come there to
+provoke her, and when Gervaise turned around the two women fixed their
+eyes on each other.
+
+"Let her be," murmured Mme Boche. "She is not the one, now I tell
+you!"
+
+At this moment, as Gervaise was shaking her last piece of linen, she
+heard laughing and talking at the door of the lavatory.
+
+"Two children are here asking for their mother!" cried Charles.
+
+All the women looked around, and Gervaise recognized Claude and
+Etienne. As soon as they saw her they ran toward her, splashing
+through the puddle's, their untied shoes half off and Claude, the
+eldest, dragging his little brother by the hand.
+
+The women as they passed uttered kindly exclamations of pity, for
+the children were evidently frightened. They clutched their mother's
+skirts and buried their pretty blond heads.
+
+"Did Papa send you?" asked Gervaise.
+
+But as she stooped to tie Etienne's shoes she saw on Claude's finger
+the key of her room with its copper tag and number.
+
+"Did you bring the key?" she exclaimed in great surprise. "And why,
+pray?"
+
+The child looked down on the key hanging on his finger, which he had
+apparently forgotten. This seemed to remind him of something, and he
+said in a clear, shrill voice:
+
+"Papa is gone!"
+
+"He went to buy your breakfast, did he not? And he told you to come
+and look for me here, I suppose?"
+
+Claude looked at his brother and hesitated. Then he exclaimed:
+
+"Papa has gone, I say. He jumped from the bed, put his things in
+his trunk, and then he carried his trunk downstairs and put it on
+a carriage. We saw him--he has gone!"
+
+Gervaise was kneeling, tying the boy's shoe. She rose slowly with a
+very white face and with her hands pressed to either temple, as if she
+were afraid of her head cracking open. She could say nothing but the
+same words over and over again:
+
+"Great God! Great God! Great God!"
+
+Mme Boche, in her turn, interrogated the child eagerly, for she was
+charmed at finding herself an actor, as it were, in this drama.
+
+"Tell us all about it, my dear. He locked the door, did he? And then
+he told you to bring the key here?" And then, lowering her voice, she
+whispered in the child's ear:
+
+"Was there a lady in the carriage?" she asked.
+
+The child looked troubled for a moment but speedily began his story
+again with a triumphant air.
+
+"He jumped off the bed, put his things in the trunk, and he went
+away."
+
+Then as Mme Boche made no attempt to detain him, he drew his brother
+to the faucet, where the two amused themselves in making the water
+run.
+
+Gervaise could not weep. She felt as if she were stifling. She covered
+her face with her hands and turned toward the wall. A sharp, nervous
+trembling shook her from head to foot. An occasional sobbing sigh or,
+rather, gasp escaped from her lips, while she pressed her clenched
+hands more tightly on her eyes, as if to increase the darkness of the
+abyss in which she felt herself to have fallen.
+
+"Come! Come, my child!" muttered Mme Boche.
+
+"If you knew! If you only knew all!" answered Gervaise. "Only this
+very morning he made me carry my shawl and my chemises to the
+Mont-de-Piete, and that was the money he had for the carriage."
+
+And the tears rushed to her eyes. The recollection of her visit to the
+pawnbroker's, of her hasty return with the money in her hand, seemed
+to let loose the sobs that strangled her and was the one drop too
+much. Tears streamed from her eyes and poured down her face. She did
+not think of wiping them away.
+
+"Be reasonable, child! Be quiet," whispered Mme Boche. "They are all
+looking at you. Is it possible you can care so much for any man? You
+love him still, although such a little while ago you pretended you did
+not care for him, and you cry as if your heart would break! Oh lord,
+what fools we women are!"
+
+Then in a maternal tone she added:
+
+"And such a pretty little woman as you are too. But now I may as
+well tell you the whole, I suppose? Well then, you remember when
+I was talking to you from the sidewalk and you were at your window?
+I knew then that it was Lantier who came in with Adele. I did not see
+his face, but I knew his coat, and Boche watched and saw him come
+downstairs this morning. But he was with Adele, you understand. There
+is another person who comes to see Virginie twice a week."
+
+She stopped for a moment to take breath and then went on in a lower
+tone still.
+
+"Take care! She is laughing at you--the heartless little cat! I bet
+all her washing is a sham. She has seen her sister and Lantier well
+off and then came here to find out how you would take it."
+
+Gervaise took her hands down from her face and looked around. When
+she saw Virginie talking and laughing with two or three women a wild
+tempest of rage shook her from head to foot. She stooped with her arms
+extended, as if feeling for something, and moved along slowly for a
+step or two, then snatched up a bucket of soapsuds and threw it at
+Virginie.
+
+"You devil! Be off with you!" cried Virginie, starting back. Only her
+feet were wet.
+
+All the women in the lavatory hurried to the scene of action. They
+jumped up on the benches, some with a piece of bread in their hands,
+others with a bit of soap, and a circle of spectators was soon formed.
+
+"Yes, she is a devil!" repeated Virginie. "What has got into the
+fool?" Gervaise stood motionless, her face convulsed and lips apart.
+The other continued:
+
+"She got tired of the country, it seems, but she left one leg behind
+her, at all events."
+
+The women laughed, and big Virginie, elated at her success, went on
+in a louder and more triumphant tone:
+
+"Come a little nearer, and I will soon settle you. You had better have
+remained in the country. It is lucky for you that your dirty soapsuds
+only went on my feet, for I would have taken you over my knees and
+given you a good spanking if one drop had gone in my face. What is
+the matter with her, anyway?" And big Virginie addressed her audience:
+"Make her tell what I have done to her! Say! Fool, what harm have I
+ever done to you?"
+
+"You had best not talk so much," answered Gervaise almost inaudibly;
+"you know very well where my husband was seen yesterday. Now be quiet
+or harm will come to you. I will strangle you--quick as a wink."
+
+"Her husband, she says! Her husband! The lady's husband! As if a
+looking thing like that had a husband! Is it my fault if he has
+deserted her? Does she think I have stolen him? Anyway, he was much
+too good for her. But tell me, some of you, was his name on his
+collar? Madame has lost her husband! She will pay a good reward,
+I am sure, to anyone who will carry him back!"
+
+The women all laughed. Gervaise, in a low, concentrated voice,
+repeated:
+
+"You know very well--you know very well! Your sister--yes, I will
+strangle your sister!"
+
+"Oh yes, I understand," answered Virginie. "Strangle her if you
+choose. What do I care? And what are you staring at me for? Can't
+I wash my clothes in peace? Come, I am sick of this stuff. Let me
+alone!"
+
+Big Virginie turned away, and after five or six angry blows with her
+beater she began again:
+
+"Yes, it is my sister, and the two adore each other. You should see
+them bill and coo together. He has left you with these dirty-faced
+imps, and you left three others behind you with three fathers! It was
+your dear Lantier who told us all that. Ah, he had had quite enough
+of you--he said so!"
+
+"Miserable fool!" cried Gervaise, white with anger.
+
+She turned and mechanically looked around on the floor; seeing
+nothing, however, but the small tub of bluing water, she threw that
+in Virginie's face.
+
+"She has spoiled my dress!" cried Virginie, whose shoulder and one
+hand were dyed a deep blue. "You just wait a moment!" she added as
+she, in her turn, snatched up a tub and dashed its contents at
+Gervaise. Then ensued a most formidable battle. The two women ran up
+and down the room in eager haste, looking for full tubs, which they
+quickly flung in the faces of each other, and each deluge was heralded
+and accompanied by a shout.
+
+"Is that enough? Will that cool you off?" cried Gervaise.
+
+And from Virginie:
+
+"Take that! It is good to have a bath once in your life!"
+
+Finally the tubs and pails were all empty, and the two women began to
+draw water from the faucets. They continued their mutual abuse while
+the water was running, and presently it was Virginie who received
+a bucketful in her face. The water ran down her back and over her
+skirts. She was stunned and bewildered, when suddenly there came
+another in her left ear, knocking her head nearly off her shoulders;
+her comb fell and with it her abundant hair.
+
+Gervaise was attacked about her legs. Her shoes were filled with
+water, and she was drenched above her knees. Presently the two women
+were deluged from head to foot; their garments stuck to them, and they
+dripped like umbrellas which had been out in a heavy shower.
+
+"What fun!" said one of the laundresses as she looked on at a safe
+distance.
+
+The whole lavatory were immensely amused, and the women applauded
+as if at a theater. The floor was covered an inch deep with water,
+through which the termagants splashed. Suddenly Virginie discovered
+a bucket of scalding water standing a little apart; she caught it and
+threw it upon Gervaise. There was an exclamation of horror from the
+lookers-on. Gervaise escaped with only one foot slightly burned, but
+exasperated by the pain, she threw a tub with all her strength at the
+legs of her opponent. Virginie fell to the ground.
+
+"She has broken her leg!" cried one of the spectators.
+
+"She deserved it," answered another, "for the tall one tried to scald
+her!"
+
+"She was right, after all, if the blonde had taken away her man!"
+
+Mme Boche rent the air with her exclamations, waving her arms
+frantically high above her head. She had taken the precaution to place
+herself behind a rampart of tubs, with Claude and Etienne clinging to
+her skirts, weeping and sobbing in a paroxysm of terror and keeping up
+a cry of "Mamma! Mamma!" When she saw Virginie prostrate on the ground
+she rushed to Gervaise and tried to pull her away.
+
+"Come with me!" she urged. "Do be sensible. You are growing so angry
+that the Lord only knows what the end of all this will be!"
+
+But Gervaise pushed her aside, and the old woman again took refuge
+behind the tubs with the children. Virginie made a spring at the
+throat of her adversary and actually tried to strangle her. Gervaise
+shook her off and snatched at the long braid hanging from the girl's
+head and pulled it as if she hoped to wrench it off, and the head
+with it.
+
+The battle began again, this time silent and wordless and literally
+tooth and nail. Their extended hands with fingers stiffly crooked,
+caught wildly at all in their way, scratching and tearing. The red
+ribbon and the chenille net worn by the brunette were torn off; the
+waist of her dress was ripped from throat to belt and showed the
+white skin on the shoulder.
+
+Gervaise had lost a sleeve, and her chemise was torn to her waist.
+Strips of clothing lay in every direction. It was Gervaise who was
+first wounded. Three long scratches from her mouth to her throat
+bled profusely, and she fought with her eyes shut lest she should be
+blinded. As yet Virginia showed no wound. Suddenly Gervaise seized
+one of her earrings--pear-shaped, of yellow glass--she tore it out
+and brought blood.
+
+"They will kill each other! Separate them," cried several voices.
+
+The women gathered around the combatants; the spectators were divided
+into two parties--some exciting and encouraging Gervaise and Virginie
+as if they had been dogs fighting, while others, more timid, trembled,
+turned away their heads and said they were faint and sick. A general
+battle threatened to take place, such was the excitement.
+
+Mme Boche called to the boy in charge:
+
+"Charles! Charles! Where on earth can he be?"
+
+Finally she discovered him, calmly looking on with his arms folded. He
+was a tall youth with a big neck. He was laughing and hugely enjoying
+the scene. It would be a capital joke, he thought, if the women tore
+each other's clothes to rags and if they should be compelled to finish
+their fight in a state of nudity.
+
+"Are you there then?" cried Mme Boche when she saw him. "Come and help
+us separate them, or you can do it yourself."
+
+"No, thank you," he answered quietly. "I don't propose to have my own
+eyes scratched out! I am not here for that. Let them alone! It will do
+them no harm to let a little of their hot blood out!"
+
+Mme Boche declared she would summon the police, but to this the
+mistress of the lavatory, the delicate-looking woman with weak eyes,
+strenuously objected.
+
+"No, no, I will not. It would injure my house!" she said over and over
+again.
+
+Both women lay on the ground. Suddenly Virginie struggled up to her
+knees. She had got possession of one of the beaters, which she
+brandished. Her voice was hoarse and low as she muttered:
+
+"This will be as good for you as for your dirty linen!"
+
+Gervaise, in her turn, snatched another beater, which she held like a
+club. Her voice also was hoarse and low.
+
+"I will beat your skin," she muttered, "as I would my coarse towels."
+
+They knelt in front of each other in utter silence for at least a
+minute, with hair streaming, eyes glaring and distended nostrils. They
+each drew a long breath.
+
+Gervaise struck the first blow with her beater full on the shoulders
+of her adversary and then threw herself over on the side to escape
+Virginie's weapon, which touched her on the hip.
+
+Thus started, they struck each other as laundresses strike their
+linen, in measured cadence.
+
+The women about them ceased to laugh; many went away, saying they were
+faint. Those who remained watched the scene with a cruel light in
+their eyes. Mme Boche had taken Claude and Etienne to the other end of
+the room, whence came the dreary sound of their sobs which were heard
+through the dull blows of the beaters.
+
+Suddenly Gervaise uttered a shriek. Virginie had struck her just above
+the elbow on her bare arm, and the flesh began to swell at once. She
+rushed at Virginie; her face was so terrible that the spectators
+thought she meant to kill her.
+
+"Enough! Enough!" they cried.
+
+With almost superhuman strength she seized Virginie by the waist, bent
+her forward with her face to the brick floor and, notwithstanding her
+struggles, lifted her skirts and showed the white and naked skin. Then
+she brought her beater down as she had formerly done at Plassans under
+the trees on the riverside, where her employer had washed the linen of
+the garrison.
+
+Each blow of the beater fell on the soft flesh with a dull thud,
+leaving a scarlet mark.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" murmured Charles with his eyes nearly starting from his
+head.
+
+The women were laughing again by this time, but soon the cry began
+again of "Enough! Enough!"
+
+Gervaise did not even hear. She seemed entirely absorbed, as if she
+were fulfilling an appointed task, and she talked with strange, wild
+gaiety, recalling one of the rhymes of her childhood:
+
+    "Pan! Pan! Margot au lavoir,
+    Pan! Pan! a coups de battoir;
+    Pan! Pan! va laver son coeur,
+    Pan! Pan! tout noir de douleur
+
+"Take that for yourself and that for your sister and this for Lantier.
+And now I shall begin all over again. That is for Lantier--that for
+your sister--and this for yourself!
+
+    "Pan! Pan! Margot au lavoir!
+    Pan! Pan! a coups de battoir."
+
+They tore Virginie from her hands. The tall brunette, weeping and
+sobbing, scarlet with shame, rushed out of the room, leaving Gervaise
+mistress of the field, who calmly arranged her dress somewhat and,
+as her arm was stiff, begged Mme Boche to lift her bundle of linen
+on her shoulder.
+
+While the old woman obeyed she dilated on her emotions during the
+scene that had just taken place.
+
+"You ought to go to a doctor and see if something is not broken.
+I heard a queer sound," she said.
+
+But Gervaise did not seem to hear her and paid no attention either to
+the women who crowded around her with congratulations. She hastened
+to the door where her children awaited her.
+
+"Two hours!" said the mistress of the establishment, already installed
+in her glass cabinet. "Two hours and two sous!"
+
+Gervaise mechanically laid down the two sous, and then, limping
+painfully under the weight of the wet linen which was slung over her
+shoulder and dripped as she moved, with her injured arm and bleeding
+cheek, she went away, dragging after her with her naked arm the
+still-sobbing and tear-stained Etienne and Claude.
+
+Behind her the lavatory resumed its wonted busy air, a little gayer
+than usual from the excitement of the morning. The women had eaten
+their bread and drunk their wine, and they splashed the water and used
+their beaters with more energy than usual as they recalled the blows
+dealt by Gervaise. They talked from alley to alley, leaning over their
+tubs. Words and laughs were lost in the sound of running water. The
+steam and mist were golden in the sun that came in through holes in
+the curtain. The odor of soapsuds grew stronger and stronger.
+
+When Gervaise entered the alley which led to the Hotel Boncœur her
+tears choked her. It was a long, dark, narrow alley, with a gutter
+on one side close to the wall, and the loathsome smell brought to her
+mind the recollection of having passed through there with Lantier
+a fortnight previous.
+
+And what had that fortnight been? A succession of quarrels and
+dissensions, the remembrance of which would be forevermore a regret
+and bitterness.
+
+Her room was empty, filled with the glowing sunlight from the open
+window. This golden light rendered more apparent the blackened ceiling
+and the walls with the shabby, dilapidated paper. There was not an
+article beyond the furniture left in the room, except a woman's fichu
+that seemed to have caught on a nail near the chimney. The children's
+bed was pulled out into the center of the room; the bureau drawers
+were wide open, displaying their emptiness. Lantier had washed and had
+used the last of the pomade--two cents' worth on the back of a playing
+card--the dirty water in which he had washed still stood in the basin.
+He had forgotten nothing; the corner hitherto occupied by his trunk
+now seemed to Gervaise a vast desert. Even the small mirror was gone.
+With a presentiment of evil she turned hastily to the chimney. Yes,
+she was right, Lantier had carried away the tickets. The pink papers
+were no longer between the candlesticks!
+
+She threw her bundle of linen into a chair and stood looking first at
+one thing and then at another in a dull agony that no tears came to
+relieve.
+
+She had but one sou in the world. She heard a merry laugh from her
+boys who, already consoled, were at the window. She went toward them
+and, laying a hand on each of their heads, looked out on that scene
+on which her weary eyes had dwelt so long that same morning.
+
+Yes, it was on that street that she and her children would soon be
+thrown, and she turned her hopeless, despairing eyes toward the outer
+boulevards--looking from right to left, lingering at the two
+extremities, seized by a feeling of terror, as if her life
+thenceforward was to be spent between a slaughterhouse and a hospital.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+GERVAISE AND COUPEAU
+
+
+Three weeks later, about half-past eleven one fine sunny morning,
+Gervaise and Coupeau, the tinworker, were eating some brandied fruit
+at the Assommoir.
+
+Coupeau, who was smoking outside, had seen her as she crossed the
+street with her linen and compelled her to enter. Her huge basket
+was on the floor, back of the little table where they sat.
+
+Father Colombe's Tavern, known as the Assommoir, was on the corners
+of the Rue des Poissonniers and of the Boulevard de Rochechouart.
+The sign bore the one single word in long, blue letters:
+
+DISTILLATION
+
+And this word stretched from one end to the other. On either side of
+the door stood tall oleanders in small casks, their leaves covered
+thick with dust. The enormous counter with its rows of glasses, its
+fountain and its pewter measures was on the left of the door, and the
+huge room was ornamented by gigantic casks painted bright yellow and
+highly varnished, hooped with shining copper. On high shelves were
+bottles of liquors and jars of fruits; all sorts of flasks standing in
+order concealed the wall and repeated their pale green or deep crimson
+tints in the great mirror behind the counter.
+
+The great feature of the house, however, was the distilling apparatus
+which stood at the back of the room behind an oak railing on which the
+tipsy workmen leaned as they stupidly watched the still with its long
+neck and serpentine tubes descending to subterranean regions--a very
+devil's kitchen.
+
+At this early hour the Assommoir was nearly empty. A stout man in his
+shirt sleeves--Father Colombe himself--was serving a little girl not
+more than twelve years old with four cents' worth of liquor in a cup.
+
+The sun streamed in at the door and lay on the floor, which was black
+where the men had spat as they smoked. And from the counter, from the
+casks, from all the room, rose an alcoholic emanation which seemed to
+intoxicate the very particles of dust floating in the sunshine.
+
+In the meantime Coupeau rolled a new cigarette. He was very neat and
+clean, wearing a blouse and a little blue cloth cap and showing his
+white teeth as he smiled.
+
+The lower jaw was somewhat prominent and the nose slightly flat; he
+had fine brown eyes and the face of a happy child and good-natured
+animal. His hair was thick and curly. His complexion was delicate
+still, for he was only twenty-six. Opposite him sat Gervaise in a
+black gown, leaning slightly forward, finishing her fruit, which she
+held by the stem.
+
+They were near the street, at the first of the four tables arranged
+in front of the counter. When Coupeau had lighted his cigar he placed
+both elbows on the table and looked at the woman without speaking.
+Her pretty face had that day something of the delicate transparency
+of fine porcelain.
+
+Then continuing something which they apparently had been previously
+discussing, he said in a low voice:
+
+"Then you say no, do you? Absolutely no?"
+
+"Of course. No it must be, Monsieur Coupeau," answered Gervaise with
+a smile. "Surely you do not intend to begin that again here! You
+promised to be reasonable too. Had I known, I should certainly have
+refused your treat."
+
+He did not speak but gazed at her more intently than before with
+tender boldness. He looked at her soft eyes and dewy lips, pale at the
+corners but half parted, allowing one to see the rich crimson within.
+
+She returned his look with a kind and affectionate smile. Finally she
+said:
+
+"You should not think of such a thing. It is folly! I am an old woman.
+I have a boy eight years old. What should we do together?"
+
+"Much as other people do, I suppose!" answered Coupeau with a wink.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"You know nothing about it, Monsieur Coupeau, but I have had some
+experience. I have two mouths in the house, and they have excellent
+appetites. How am I to bring up my children if I trifle away my time?
+Then, too, my misfortune has taught me one great lesson, which is that
+the less I have to do with men, the better!"
+
+She then proceeded to explain all her reasons, calmly and without
+anger. It was easy to see that her words were the result of grave
+consideration.
+
+Coupeau listened quietly, saying only at intervals:
+
+"You are hurting my feelings. Yes, hurting my feelings."
+
+"Yes, I see that," she answered, "and I am really very sorry for you.
+If I had any idea of leading a different life from that which I follow
+today it might as well be with you as with another. You have the look
+of a good-natured man. But what is the use? I have now been with
+Madame Fauconnier for a fortnight. The children are going to school,
+and I am very happy, for I have plenty to do. Don't you see,
+therefore, that it is best for us to remain as we are?"
+
+And she stooped to pick up her basket.
+
+"You are keeping me here to talk," she said, "and they are waiting for
+me at my employer's. You will find some other woman, Monsieur Coupeau,
+far prettier than I, who will not have two children to bring up!"
+
+He looked at the clock and made her sit down again.
+
+"Wait!" he cried. "It is still thirty-five minutes of eleven. I have
+twenty-five minutes still, and don't be afraid of my familiarity, for
+the table is between us! Do you dislike me so very much that you can't
+stay and talk with me for five minutes?"
+
+She put down her basket, unwilling to seem disobliging, and they
+talked for some time in a friendly sort of way. She had breakfasted
+before she left home, and he had swallowed his soup in the greatest
+haste and laid in wait for her as she came out. Gervaise, as she
+listened to him, watched from the windows--between the bottles of
+brandied fruit--the movement of the crowd in the street, which at
+this hour--that of the Parisian breakfast--was unusually lively.
+Workmen hurried into the baker's and, coming out with a loaf under
+their arms, they went into the Veau a Deux Tetes, three doors higher
+up, to breakfast at six sous. Next the baker's was a shop where fried
+potatoes and mussels with parsley were sold. A constant succession of
+shopgirls carried off paper parcels of fried potatoes and cups filled
+with mussels, and others bought bunches of radishes. When Gervaise
+leaned a little more toward the window she saw still another shop,
+also crowded, from which issued a steady stream of children holding
+in their hands, wrapped in paper, a breaded cutlet or a sausage,
+still warm.
+
+A group formed around the door of the Assommoir.
+
+"Say, Bibi-la-Grillade," asked a voice, "will you stand a drink all
+around?"
+
+Five workmen went in, and the same voice said:
+
+"Father Colombe, be honest now. Give us honest glasses, and no
+nutshells, if you please."
+
+Presently three more workmen entered together, and finally a crowd
+of blouses passed in between the dusty oleanders.
+
+"You have no business to ask such questions," said Gervaise to
+Coupeau; "of course I loved him. But after the manner in which he
+deserted me--"
+
+They were speaking of Lantier. Gervaise had never seen him again;
+she supposed him to be living with Virginie's sister, with a friend
+who was about to start a manufactory for hats.
+
+At first she thought of committing suicide, of drowning herself,
+but she had grown more reasonable and had really begun to trust that
+things were all for the best. With Lantier she felt sure she never
+could have done justice to the children, so extravagant were his
+habits.
+
+He might come, of course, and see Claude and Etienne. She would not
+show him the door; only so far as she herself was concerned, he had
+best not lay his finger on her. And she uttered these words in a tone
+of determination, like a woman whose plan of life is clearly defined,
+while Coupeau, who was by no means inclined to give her up lightly,
+teased and questioned her in regard to Lantier with none too much
+delicacy, it is true, but his teeth were so white and his face so
+merry that the woman could not take offense. "Did you beat him?"
+he asked finally. "Oh, you are none too amiable. You beat people
+sometimes, I have heard."
+
+She laughed gaily.
+
+Yes, it was true she had whipped that great Virginie. That day she
+could have strangled someone with a glad heart. And she laughed again,
+because Coupeau told her that Virginie, in her humiliation, had left
+the _Quartier_.
+
+Gervaise's face, as she laughed, however, had a certain childish
+sweetness. She extended her slender, dimpled hands, declaring she
+would not hurt a fly. All she knew of blows was that she had received
+a good many in her life. Then she began to talk of Plassans and of her
+youth. She had never been indiscreet, nor was she fond of men. When
+she had fallen in with Lantier she was only fourteen, and she regarded
+him as her husband. Her only fault, she declared, was that she was too
+amiable and allowed people to impose on her and that she got fond of
+people too easily; were she to love another man, she should wish and
+expect to live quietly and comfortably with him always, without any
+nonsense.
+
+And when Coupeau slyly asked her if she called her dear children
+nonsense she gave him a little slap and said that she, of course,
+was much like other women. But women were not like men, after all;
+they had their homes to take care of and keep clean; she was like
+her mother, who had been a slave to her brutal father for more than
+twenty years!
+
+"My very lameness--" she continued.
+
+"Your lameness?" interrupted Coupeau gallantly. "Why, it is almost
+nothing. No one would ever notice it!"
+
+She shook her head. She knew very well that it was very evident, and
+at forty it would be far worse, but she said softly, with a faint
+smile, "You have a strange taste, to fall in love with a lame woman!"
+
+He, with his elbows on the table, still coaxed and entreated, but she
+continued to shake her head in the negative. She listened with her
+eyes fixed on the street, seemingly fascinated by the surging crowd.
+
+The shops were being swept; the last frying pan of potatoes was taken
+from the stove; the pork merchant washed the plates his customers had
+used and put his place in order. Groups of mechanics were hurrying out
+from all the workshops, laughing and pushing each other like so many
+schoolboys, making a great scuffling on the sidewalk with their
+hobnailed shoes; while some, with their hands in their pockets,
+smoked in a meditative fashion, looking up at the sun and winking
+prodigiously. The sidewalks were crowded and the crowd constantly
+added to by men who poured from the open door--men in blouses and
+frocks, old jackets and coats, which showed all their defects in
+the clear morning light.
+
+The bells of the various manufactories were ringing loudly, but the
+workmen did not hurry. They deliberately lighted their pipes and then
+with rounded shoulders slouched along, dragging their feet after them.
+
+Gervaise mechanically watched a group of three, one man much taller
+than the other two, who seemed to be hesitating as to what they should
+do next. Finally they came directly to the Assommoir.
+
+"I know them," said Coupeau, "or rather I know the tall one. It is
+Mes-Bottes, a comrade of mine."
+
+The Assommoir was now crowded with boisterous men. Two glasses rang
+with the energy with which they brought down their fists on the
+counter. They stood in rows, with their hands crossed over their
+stomachs or folded behind their backs, waiting their turn to be
+served by Father Colombe.
+
+"Hallo!" cried Mes-Bottes, giving Coupeau a rough slap on the
+shoulders. "How fine you have got to be with your cigarettes and
+your linen shirt bosom! Who is your friend that pays for all this?
+I should like to make her acquaintance."
+
+"Don't be so silly!" returned Coupeau angrily.
+
+But the other gave a knowing wink.
+
+"Ah, I understand. 'A word to the wise--'" And he turned round with
+a fearful lurch to look at Gervaise, who shuddered and recoiled. The
+tobacco smoke, the odor of humanity added to this air heavy with
+alcohol, was oppressive, and she choked a little and coughed.
+
+"Ah, what an awful thing it is to drink!" she said in a whisper to her
+friend, to whom she then went on to say how years before she had drunk
+anisette with her mother at Plassans and how it had made her so very
+sick that ever since that day she had never been able to endure even
+the smell of liquors.
+
+"You see," she added as she held up her glass, "I have eaten, the
+fruit, but I left the brandy, for it would make me ill."
+
+Coupeau also failed to understand how a man could swallow glasses of
+brandy and water, one after the other. Brandied fruit, now and again,
+was not bad. As to absinthe and similar abominations, he never touched
+them--not he, indeed. His comrades might laugh at him as much as they
+pleased; he always remained on the other side of the door when they
+came in to swallow perdition like that.
+
+His father, who was a tinworker like himself, had fallen one day from
+the roof of No. 25, in La Rue Coquenaud, and this recollection had
+made him very prudent ever since. As for himself, when he passed
+through that street and saw the place he would sooner drink the water
+in the gutter than swallow a drop at the wineshop. He concluded with
+the sentence:
+
+"You see, in my trade a man needs a clear head and steady legs."
+
+Gervaise had taken up her basket; she had not risen from her chair,
+however, but held it on her knees with a dreary look in her eyes, as
+if the words of the young mechanic had awakened in her mind strange
+thoughts of a possible future.
+
+She answered in a low, hesitating tone, without any apparent
+connection:
+
+"Heaven knows I am not ambitious. I do not ask for much in this world.
+My idea would be to live a quiet life and always have enough to eat--a
+clean place to live in--with a comfortable bed, a table and a chair or
+two. Yes, I would like to bring my children up in that way and see
+them good and industrious. I should not like to run the risk of being
+beaten--no, that would not please me at all!"
+
+She hesitated, as if to find something else to say, and then resumed:
+
+"Yes, and at the end I should wish to die in my bed in my own home!"
+
+She pushed back her chair and rose. Coupeau argued with her vehemently
+and then gave an uneasy glance at the clock. They did not, however,
+depart at once. She wished to look at the still and stood for some
+minutes gazing with curiosity at the great copper machine. The
+tinworker, who had followed her, explained to her how the thing
+worked, pointing out with his finger the various parts of the machine,
+and showed the enormous retort whence fell the clear stream of
+alcohol. The still, with its intricate and endless coils of wire and
+pipes, had a dreary aspect. Not a breath escaped from it, and hardly
+a sound was heard. It was like some night task performed in daylight
+by a melancholy, silent workman.
+
+In the meantime Mes-Bottes, accompanied by his two comrades, had
+lounged to the oak railing and leaned there until there was a corner
+of the counter free. He laughed a tipsy laugh as he stood with his
+eyes fixed on the machine.
+
+"By thunder!" he muttered. "That is a jolly little thing!"
+
+He went on to say that it held enough to keep their throats fresh for
+a week. As for himself, he would like to hold the end of that pipe
+between his teeth, and he would like to feel that liquor run down his
+throat in a steady stream until it reached his heels.
+
+The still did its work slowly but surely. There was not a glimmer on
+its surface--no firelight reflected in its clean-colored sides. The
+liquor dropped steadily and suggested a persevering stream which would
+gradually invade the room, spread over the streets and boulevard and
+finally deluge and inundate Paris itself.
+
+Gervaise shuddered and drew back. She tried to smile, but her lips
+quivered as she murmured:
+
+"It frightens me--that machine! It makes me feel cold to see that
+constant drip."
+
+Then returning to the idea which had struck her as the acme of human
+happiness, she said:
+
+"Say, do you not think that would be very nice? To work and have
+plenty to eat, to have a little home all to oneself, to bring up
+children and then die in one's bed?"
+
+"And not be beaten," added Coupeau gaily. "But I will promise never
+to beat you, Madame Gervaise, if you will agree to what I ask. I will
+promise also never to drink, because I love you too much! Come now,
+say yes."
+
+He lowered his voice and spoke with his lips close to her throat,
+while she, holding her basket in front of her, was making a path
+through the crowd of men.
+
+But she did not say no or shake her head as she had done. She glanced
+up at him with a half-tender smile and seemed to rejoice in the
+assurance he gave that he did not drink.
+
+It was clear that she would have said yes if she had not sworn never
+to have anything more to do with men.
+
+Finally they reached the door and went out of the place, leaving it
+crowded to overflowing. The fumes of alcohol and the tipsy voices of
+the men carousing went out into the street with them.
+
+Mes-Bottes was heard accusing Father Colombe of cheating by not
+filling his glasses more than half full, and he proposed to his
+comrades to go in future to another place, where they could do
+much better and get more for their money.
+
+"Ah," said Gervaise, drawing a long breath when they stood on the
+sidewalk, "here one can breathe again. Good-by, Monsieur Coupeau,
+and many thanks for your politeness. I must hasten now!"
+
+She moved on, but he took her hand and held it fast.
+
+"Go a little way with me. It will not be much farther for you.
+I must stop at my sister's before I go back to the shop."
+
+She yielded to his entreaties, and they walked slowly on together.
+He told her about his family. His mother, a tailoress, was the
+housekeeper. Twice she had been obliged to give up her work on account
+of trouble with her eyes. She was sixty-two on the third of the last
+month. He was the youngest child. One of his sisters, Mme Lerat,
+a widow, thirty-six years old, was a flower maker and lived at
+Batignolles, in La Rue Des Moines. The other, who was thirty, had
+married a chainmaker--a man by the name of Lorilleux. It was to their
+rooms that he was now going. They lived in that great house on the
+left. He ate his dinner every night with them; it was an economy for
+them all. But he wanted to tell them now not to expect him that night,
+as he was invited to dine with a friend.
+
+Gervaise interrupted him suddenly:
+
+"Did I hear your friend call you Cadet-Cassis?"
+
+"Yes. That is a name they have given me, because when they drag me
+into a wineshop it is cassis I always take. I had as lief be called
+Cadet-Cassis as Mes-Bottes, any time."
+
+"I do not think Cadet-Cassis so very bad," answered Gervaise, and she
+asked him about his work. How long should he be employed on the new
+hospital?
+
+"Oh," he answered, "there was never any lack of work." He had always
+more than he could do. He should remain in that shop at least a year,
+for he had yards and yards of gutters to make.
+
+"Do you know," he said, "when I am up there I can see the Hotel
+Boncœur. Yesterday you were at the window, and I waved my hand,
+but you did not see me."
+
+They by this time had turned into La Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. He stopped
+and looked up.
+
+"There is the house," he said, "and I was born only a few doors
+farther off. It is an enormous place."
+
+Gervaise looked up and down the façade. It was indeed enormous. The
+house was of five stories, with fifteen windows on each floor. The
+blinds were black and with many of the slats broken, which gave an
+indescribable air of ruin and desolation to the place. Four shops
+occupied the _rez-de-chaussee_. On the right of the door was a
+large room, occupied as a cookshop. On the left was a charcoal vender,
+a thread-and-needle shop and an establishment for the manufacture of
+umbrellas.
+
+The house appeared all the higher for the reason that on either side
+were two low buildings, squeezed close to it, and stood square, like
+a block of granite roughly hewn, against the blue sky. Totally without
+ornament, the house grimly suggested a prison.
+
+Gervaise looked at the entrance, an immense doorway which rose to the
+height of the second story and made a deep passage, at the end of
+which was a large courtyard. In the center of this doorway, which was
+paved like the street, ran a gutter full of pale rose-colored water.
+
+"Come up," said Coupeau; "they won't eat you."
+
+Gervaise preferred to wait for him in the street, but she consented
+to go as far as the room of the concierge, which was within the porch,
+on the left.
+
+When she had reached this place she again looked up.
+
+Within there were six floors, instead of five, and four regular
+facades surrounded the vast square of the courtyard. The walls were
+gray, covered with patches of leprous yellow, stained by the dripping
+from the slate-covered roof. The wall had not even a molding to break
+its dull uniformity--only the gutters ran across it. The windows had
+neither shutters nor blinds but showed the panes of glass which were
+greenish and full of bubbles. Some were open, and from them hung
+checked mattresses and sheets to air. Lines were stretched in front
+of others, on which the family wash was hung to dry--men's shirts,
+women's chemises and children's breeches! There was a look as if the
+dwellers under that roof found their quarters too small and were
+oozing out at every crack and aperture.
+
+For the convenience of each facade there was a narrow, high doorway,
+from which a damp passage led to the rear, where were four staircases
+with iron railings. These each had one of the first four letters of
+the alphabet painted at the side.
+
+The _rez-de-chaussee_ was divided into enormous workshops and lit
+by windows black with dust. The forge of a locksmith blazed in one;
+from another came the sound of a carpenter's plane, while near the
+doorway a pink stream from a dyeing establishment poured into the
+gutter. Pools of stagnant water stood in the courtyard, all littered
+with shavings and fragments of charcoal. A few pale tufts of grass
+struggled up between the flat stones, and the whole courtyard was
+lit but dimly.
+
+In the shade near the water faucet three small hens were pecking
+with the vain hope of finding a worm, and Gervaise looked about her,
+amazed at the enormous place which seemed like a little world and as
+interested in the house as if it were a living creature.
+
+"Are you looking for anyone?" asked the concierge, coming to her door
+considerably puzzled.
+
+But the young woman explained that she was waiting for a friend and
+then turned back toward the street. As Coupeau still delayed, she
+returned to the courtyard, finding in it a strange fascination.
+
+The house did not strike her as especially ugly. At some of the
+windows were plants--a wallflower blooming in a pot--a caged canary,
+who uttered an occasional warble, and several shaving mirrors caught
+the light and shone like stars.
+
+A cabinetmaker sang, accompanied by the regular whistling sounds
+of his plane, while from the locksmith's quarters came a clatter
+of hammers struck in cadence.
+
+At almost all the open windows the laughing, dirty faces of merry
+children were seen, and women sat with their calm faces in profile,
+bending over their work. It was the quiet time--after the morning
+labors were over and the men were gone to their work and the house
+was comparatively quiet, disturbed only by the sounds of the various
+trades. The same refrain repeated hour after hour has a soothing
+effect, Gervaise thought.
+
+To be sure, the courtyard was a little damp. Were she to live there,
+she should certainly prefer a room on the sunny side.
+
+She went in several steps and breathed that heavy odor of the homes of
+the poor--an odor of old dust, of rancid dirt and grease--but as the
+acridity of the smells from the dyehouse predominated, she decided it
+to be far better than the Hotel Boncœur.
+
+She selected a window--a window in the corner on the left, where there
+was a small box planted with scarlet beans, whose slender tendrils
+were beginning to wind round a little arbor of strings.
+
+"I have made you wait too long, I am afraid," said Coupeau, whom she
+suddenly heard at her side. "They make a great fuss when I do not dine
+there, and she did not like it today, especially as my sister had
+bought veal. You are looking at this house," he continued. "Think of
+it--it is always lit from top to bottom. There are a hundred lodgers
+in it. If I had any furniture I would have had a room in it long ago.
+It would be very nice here, wouldn't it?"
+
+"Yes," murmured Gervaise, "very nice indeed. At Plassans there were
+not so many people in one whole street. Look up at that window on the
+fifth floor--the window, I mean, where those beans are growing. See
+how pretty that is!"
+
+He, with his usual recklessness, declared he would hire that room
+for her, and they would live there together.
+
+She turned away with a laugh and begged him not to talk any more
+nonsense. The house might stand or fall--they would never have a room
+in it together.
+
+But Coupeau, all the same, was not reproved when he held her hand
+longer than was necessary in bidding her farewell when they reached
+Mme Fauconnier's laundry.
+
+For another month the kindly intercourse between Gervaise and Coupeau
+continued on much the same footing. He thought her wonderfully
+courageous, declared she was killing herself with hard work all day
+and sitting up half the night to sew for the children. She was not
+like the women he had known; she took life too seriously, by far!
+
+She laughed and defended herself modestly. Unfortunately, she said,
+she had not always been discreet. She alluded to her first confinement
+when she was not more than fourteen and to the bottles of anisette she
+had emptied with her mother, but she had learned much from experience,
+she said. He was mistaken, however, in thinking she was persevering
+and strong. She was, on the contrary, very weak and too easily
+influenced, as she had discovered to her cost. Her dream had always
+been to live in a respectable way among respectable people, because
+bad company knocks the life out of a woman. She trembled when she
+thought of the future and said she was like a sou thrown up in the
+air, falling, heads up or down, according to chance, on the muddy
+pavement. All she had seen, the bad example spread before her childish
+eyes, had given her valuable lessons. But Coupeau laughed at these
+gloomy notions and brought back her courage by attempting to put his
+arm around her waist. She slapped his hands, and he cried out that
+"for a weak woman, she managed to hurt a fellow considerably!"
+
+As for himself, he was always as merry as a grig, and no fool, either.
+He parted his hair carefully on one side, wore pretty cravats and
+patent-leather shoes on Sunday and was as saucy as only a fine
+Parisian workman can be.
+
+They were of mutual use to each other at the Hotel Boncœur. Coupeau
+went for her milk, did many little errands for her and carried home
+her linen to her customers and often took the children out to walk.
+Gervaise, to return these courtesies, went up to the tiny room where
+he slept and in his absence looked over his clothes, sewed on buttons
+and mended his garments. They grew to be very good and cordial
+friends. He was to her a constant source of amusement. She listened
+to the songs he sang and to their slang and nonsense, which as yet
+had for her much of the charm of novelty. But he began to grow uneasy,
+and his smiles were less frequent. He asked her whenever they met the
+same question, "When shall it be?"
+
+She answered invariably with a jest but passed her days in a fire
+of indelicate allusions, however, which did not bring a flush to
+her cheek. So long as he was not rough and brutal, she objected to
+nothing, but one day she was very angry when he, in trying to steal
+a kiss, tore out a lock of her hair.
+
+About the last of June Coupeau became absolutely morose, and Gervaise
+was so much disturbed by certain glances he gave her that she fairly
+barricaded her door at night. Finally one Tuesday evening, when he had
+sulked from the previous Sunday, he came to her door at eleven in the
+evening. At first she refused to open it, but his voice was so gentle,
+so sad even, that she pulled away the barrier she had pushed against
+the door for her better protection. When he came in she was startled
+and thought him ill; he was so deadly pale and his eyes were so
+bright. No, he was not ill, he said, but things could not go on
+like this; he could not sleep.
+
+"Listen, Madame Gervaise," he exclaimed with tears in his eyes and a
+strange choking sensation in his throat. "We must be married at once.
+That is all there is to be said about it."
+
+Gervaise was astonished and very grave.
+
+"Oh, Monsieur Coupeau, I never dreamed of this, as you know very well,
+and you must not take such a step lightly."
+
+But he continued to insist; he was certainly fully determined. He had
+come down to her then, without waiting until morning, merely because
+he needed a good sleep. As soon as she said yes he would leave her.
+But he would not go until he heard that word.
+
+"I cannot say yes in such a hurry," remonstrated Gervaise. "I do not
+choose to run the risk of your telling me at some future day that
+I led you into this. You are making a great mistake, I assure you.
+Suppose you should not see me for a week--you would forget me
+entirely. Men sometimes marry for a fancy and in twenty-four hours
+would gladly take it all back. Sit down here and let us talk a
+little."
+
+They sat in that dingy room lit only by one candle, which they forgot
+to snuff, and discussed the expediency of their marriage until after
+midnight, speaking very low, lest they should disturb the children,
+who were asleep with weir heads on the same pillow.
+
+And Gervaise pointed them out to Coupeau. That was an odd sort of
+dowry to carry a man, surely! How could she venture to go to him with
+such encumbrances? Then, too, she was troubled about another thing.
+People would laugh at him. Her story was known; her lover had been
+seen, and there would be no end of talk if she should marry now.
+
+To all these good and excellent reasons Coupeau answered with a shrug
+of his shoulders. What did he care for talk and gossip? He never
+meddled with the affairs of others; why should they meddle with his?
+
+Yes, she had children, to be sure, and he would look out for them with
+her. He had never seen a woman in his life who was so good and so
+courageous and patient. Besides, that had nothing to do with it! Had
+she been ugly and lazy, with a dozen dirty children, he would have
+wanted her and only her.
+
+"Yes," he continued, tapping her on the knee, "you are the woman I
+want, and none other. You have nothing to say against that, I
+suppose?"
+
+Gervaise melted by degrees. Her resolution forsook her, and a weakness
+of her heart and her senses overwhelmed her in the face of this brutal
+passion. She ventured only a timid objection or two. Her hands lay
+loosely folded on her knees, while her face was very gentle and sweet.
+
+Through the open window came the soft air of a fair June night; the
+candle flickered in the wind; from the street came the sobs of a
+child, the child of a drunken man who was lying just in front of the
+door in the street. From a long distance the breeze brought the notes
+of a violin playing at a restaurant for some late marriage festival--a
+delicate strain it was, too, clear and sweet as musical glasses.
+
+Coupeau, seeing that the young woman had exhausted all her arguments,
+snatched her hands and drew her toward him. She was in one of those
+moods which she so much distrusted, when she could refuse no one
+anything. But the young man did not understand this, and he contented
+himself with simply holding her hands closely in his.
+
+"You say yes, do you not?" he asked.
+
+"How you tease," she replied. "You wish it--well then, yes. Heaven
+grant that the day will not come when you will be sorry for it."
+
+He started up, lifting her from her feet, and kissed her loudly. He
+glanced at the children.
+
+"Hush!" he said. "We must not wake the boys. Good night."
+
+And he went out of the room. Gervaise, trembling from head to foot,
+sat for a full hour on the side of her bed without undressing. She was
+profoundly touched and thought Coupeau very honest and very kind. The
+tipsy man in the street uttered a groan like that of a wild beast, and
+the notes of the violin had ceased.
+
+The next evening Coupeau urged Gervaise to go with him to call on his
+sister. But the young woman shrank with ardent fear from this visit to
+the Lorilleuxs'. She saw perfectly well that her lover stood in dread
+of these people.
+
+He was in no way dependent on this sister, who was not the eldest
+either. Mother Coupeau would gladly give her consent, for she had
+never been known to contradict her son. In the family, however, the
+Lorilleuxs were supposed to earn ten francs per day, and this gave
+them great weight. Coupeau would never venture to marry unless they
+agreed to accept his wife.
+
+"I have told them about you," he said. "Gervaise--good heavens, what
+a baby you are! Come there tonight with me; you will find my sister
+a little stiff, and Lorilleux is none too amiable. The truth is they
+are much vexed, because, you see, if I marry I shall no longer dine
+with them--and that is their great economy. But that makes no odds;
+they won't put you out of doors. Do what I ask, for it is absolutely
+necessary."
+
+These words frightened Gervaise nearly out of her wits. One Saturday
+evening, however, she consented. Coupeau came for her at half-past
+eight. She was all ready, wearing a black dress, a shawl with printed
+palm leaves in yellow and a white cap with fluted ruffles. She had
+saved seven francs for the shawl and two francs fifty centimes for
+the cap; the dress was an old one, cleaned and made over.
+
+"They expect you," said Coupeau as they walked along the street, "and
+they have become accustomed to the idea of seeing me married. They are
+really quite amiable tonight. Then, too, if you have never seen a gold
+chain made you will be much amused in watching it. They have an order
+for Monday."
+
+"And have they gold in these rooms?" asked Gervaise.
+
+"I should say so! It is on the walls, on the floors--everywhere!"
+
+By this time they had reached the door and had entered the courtyard.
+The Lorilleuxs lived on the sixth floor--staircase B. Coupeau told her
+with a laugh to keep tight hold of the iron railing and not let it go.
+
+She looked up, half shutting her eyes, and gasped as she saw the
+height to which the staircase wound. The last gas burner, higher up,
+looked like a star trembling in a black sky, while two others on
+alternate floors cast long, slanting rays down the interminable
+stairs.
+
+"Aha!" cried the young man as they stopped a moment on the second
+landing. "I smell onion soup; somebody has evidently been eating onion
+soup about here, and it smells good too."
+
+It is true. Staircase B, dirty and greasy, both steps and railing with
+plastering knocked off and showing the laths beneath, was permeated
+with the smell of cooking. From each landing ran narrow corridors,
+and on either side were half-open doors painted yellow and black, with
+finger marks about the lock and handles, and through the open window
+came the damp, disgusting smell of sinks and sewers mingling with the
+odor of onions.
+
+Up to the sixth floor came the noises from the
+_rez-de-chaussee_--the rattling of dishes being washed, the
+scraping of saucepans, and all that sort of thing. On one floor
+Gervaise saw through an open door on which were the words DESIGNER AND
+DRAUGHTSMAN in large letters two men seated at a table covered with a
+varnished cloth; they were disputing violently amid thick clouds of
+smoke from their pipes. The second and third floors were the quietest.
+Here through the open doors came the sound of a cradle rocking, the
+wail of a baby, a woman's voice, the rattle of a spoon against a cup.
+On one door she read a placard, MME GAUDRON, CARDER; on the next, M.
+MADINIER, MANUFACTURER OF BOXES.
+
+On the fourth there was a great quarrel going on--blows and
+oaths--which did not prevent the neighbors opposite from playing cards
+with their door wide open for the benefit of the air. When Gervaise
+reached the fifth floor she was out of breath. Such innumerable stairs
+were a novelty to her. These winding railings made her dizzy. One
+family had taken possession of the landing; the father was washing
+plates in a small earthen pan near the sink, while the mother was
+scrubbing the baby before putting it to sleep. Coupeau laughingly bade
+Gervaise keep up her courage, and at last they reached the top, and
+she looked around to see whence came the clear, shrill voice which
+she had heard above all other sounds ever since her foot touched the
+first stair. It was a little old woman who sang as she worked, and her
+work was dressing dolls at three cents apiece. Gervaise clung to the
+railing, all out of breath, and looked down into the depths below--the
+gas burner now looked like a star at the bottom of a deep well. The
+smells, the turbulent life of this great house, seemed to rush over
+her in one tremendous gust. She gasped and turned pale.
+
+"We have not got there yet," said Coupeau; "we have much farther
+to go." And he turned to the left and then to the right again. The
+corridor stretched out before them, faintly lit by an occasional gas
+burner; a succession of doors, like those of a prison or a convent,
+continued to appear, nearly all wide open, showing the sordid
+interiors. Finally they reached a corridor that was entirely dark.
+
+"Here we are," said the tinworker. "Isn't it a journey? Look out
+for three steps. Hold onto the wall."
+
+And Gervaise moved cautiously for ten paces or more. She counted the
+three steps, and then Coupeau pushed open a door without knocking.
+A bright light streamed forth. They went in.
+
+It was a long, narrow apartment, almost like a prolongation of the
+corridor; a woolen curtain, faded and spotted, drawn on one side,
+divided the room in two.
+
+One compartment, the first, contained a bed pushed under the corner
+of the mansard roof; a stove, still warm from the cooking of the
+dinner; two chairs, a table and a wardrobe. To place this last piece
+of furniture where it stood, between the bed and the door, had
+necessitated sawing away a portion of the ceiling.
+
+The second compartment was the workshop. At the back, a tiny forge
+with bellows; on the right, a vice screwed against the wall under
+an _etagere_, where were iron tools piled up; on the left, in front
+of the window, was a small table covered with pincers, magnifying
+glasses, tiny scales and shears--all dirty and greasy.
+
+"We have come!" cried Coupeau, going as far as the woolen curtain.
+
+But he was not answered immediately.
+
+Gervaise, much agitated by the idea that she was entering a place
+filled with gold, stood behind her friend and did not know whether
+to speak or retreat.
+
+The bright light which came from a lamp and also from a brazier of
+charcoal in the forge added to her trouble. She saw Mme Lorilleux,
+a small, dark woman, agile and strong, drawing with all the vigor
+of her arms--assisted by a pair of pincers--a thread of black metal,
+which she passed through the holes of a drawplate held by the vice.
+Before the desk or table in front of the window sat Lorilleux, as
+short as his wife, but with broader shoulders. He was managing a tiny
+pair of pincers and doing some work so delicate that it was almost
+imperceptible. It was he who first looked up and lifted his head with
+its scanty yellow hair. His face was the color of old wax, was long
+and had an expression of physical suffering.
+
+"Ah, it is you, is it? Well! Well! But we are in a hurry, you
+understand. We have an order to fill. Don't come into the workroom.
+Remain in the chamber." And he returned to his work; his face was
+reflected in a ball filled with water, through which the lamp sent
+on his work a circle of the brightest possible light.
+
+"Find chairs for yourselves," cried Mme Lorilleux. "This is the lady,
+I suppose. Very well! Very well!"
+
+She rolled up her wire and carried it to the forge, and then she
+fanned the coals a little to quicken the heat.
+
+Coupeau found two chairs and made Gervaise seat herself near the
+curtain. The room was so narrow that he could not sit beside her, so
+he placed his chair a little behind and leaned over her to give her
+the information he deemed desirable.
+
+Gervaise, astonished by the strange reception given her by these
+people and uncomfortable under their sidelong glances, had a buzzing
+in her ears which prevented her from hearing what was said.
+
+She thought the woman very old looking for her thirty years and also
+extremely untidy, with her hair tumbling over her shoulders and her
+dirty camisole.
+
+The husband, not more than a year older, seemed to Gervaise really
+an old man with thin, compressed lips and bowed figure. He was in his
+shirt sleeves, and his naked feet were thrust into slippers down at
+the heel.
+
+She was infinitely astonished at the smallness of the atelier, at the
+blackened walls and at the terrible heat.
+
+Tiny drops bedewed the waxed forehead of Lorilleux himself, while Mme
+Lorilleux threw off her sack and stood in bare arms and chemise half
+slipped off.
+
+"And the gold?" asked Gervaise softly.
+
+Her eager eyes searched the corners, hoping to discover amid all the
+dirt something of the splendor of which she had dreamed.
+
+But Coupeau laughed.
+
+"Gold?" he said. "Look! Here it is--and here--and here again, at your
+feet."
+
+He pointed in succession to the fine thread with which his sister was
+busy and at another package of wire hung against the wall near the
+vice; then falling down on his hands and knees, he gathered up from
+the floor, on the tip of his moistened finger, several tiny specks
+which looked like needle points.
+
+Gervaise cried out, "That surely is not gold! That black metal which
+looks precisely like iron!"
+
+Her lover laughed and explained to her the details of the manufacture
+in which his brother-in-law was engaged. The wire was furnished them
+in coils, just as it hung against the wall, and then they were obliged
+to heat and reheat it half a dozen times during their manipulations,
+lest it should break. Considerable strength and a vast deal of skill
+were needed, and his sister had both. He had seen her draw out the
+gold until it was like a hair. She would never let her husband do it
+because he always had a cough.
+
+All this time Lorilleux was watching Gervaise stealthily, and after
+a violent fit of coughing he said with an air as if he were speaking
+to himself:
+
+"I make columns."
+
+"Yes," said Coupeau in an explanatory voice, "there are four different
+kinds of chains, and his style is called a column."
+
+Lorilleux uttered a little grunt of satisfaction, all the time at
+work, with the tiny pincers held between very dirty nails.
+
+"Look here, Cadet-Cassis," he said. "This very morning I made a little
+calculation. I began my work when I was only twelve years old. How
+many yards do you think I have made up to this day?"
+
+He lifted his pale face.
+
+"Eight thousand! Do you understand? Eight thousand! Enough to twist
+around the necks of all the women in this _Quartier_."
+
+Gervaise returned to her chair, entirely disenchanted. She thought it
+was all very ugly and uninteresting. She smiled in order to gratify
+the Lorilleuxs, but she was annoyed and troubled at the profound
+silence they preserved in regard to her marriage, on account of which
+she had called there that evening. These people treated her as if she
+were simply a spectator whose curiosity had induced Coupeau to bring
+her to see their work.
+
+They began to talk; it was about the lodgers in the house. Mme
+Lorilleux asked her brother if he had not heard those Benard people
+quarreling as he came upstairs. She said the husband always came home
+tipsy. Then she spoke of the designer, who was overwhelmed with debts,
+always smoking and always quarreling. The landlord was going to turn
+out the Coquets, who owed three quarters now and who would put their
+furnace out on the landing, which was very dangerous. Mlle Remanjon,
+as she was going downstairs with a bundle of dolls, was just in time
+to rescue one of the children from being burned alive.
+
+Gervaise was beginning to find the place unendurable. The heat was
+suffocating; the door could not be opened, because the slightest draft
+gave Lorilleux a cold. As they ignored the marriage question utterly,
+she pulled her lover's sleeve to signify her wish to depart. He
+understood and was himself annoyed at this affectation of silence.
+
+"We are going," he said coldly, "We do not care to interrupt your
+work any longer."
+
+He lingered a moment, hoping for a word or an allusion. Suddenly he
+decided to begin the subject himself.
+
+"We rely on you, Lorilleux. You will be my wife's witness," he said.
+
+The man lifted his head in affected surprise, while his wife stood
+still in the center of the workshop.
+
+"Are you in earnest?" he murmured, and then continued as if
+soliloquizing, "It is hard to know when this confounded Cadet-Cassis
+is in earnest."
+
+"We have no advice to give," interrupted his wife. "It is a foolish
+notion, this marrying, and it never succeeds. Never--no--never."
+
+She drawled out these last words, examining Gervaise from head to foot
+as she spoke.
+
+"My brother is free to do as he pleases, of course," she continued.
+"Of course his family would have liked--But then people always plan,
+and things turn out so different. Of course it is none of my business.
+Had he brought me the lowest of the low, I should have said, 'Marry
+her and let us live in peace!' He was very comfortable with us,
+nevertheless. He has considerable flesh on his bones and does not look
+as if he had been starved. His soup was always ready to the minute.
+Tell me, Lorilleux, don't you think that my brother's friend looks
+like Therese--you know whom I mean--that woman opposite, who died of
+consumption?"
+
+"She certainly does," answered the chainmaker contemplatively.
+
+"And you have two children, madame? I said to my brother I could not
+understand how he could marry a woman with two children. You must not
+be angry if I think of his interests; it is only natural. You do not
+look very strong. Say, Lorilleux, don't you think that Madame looks
+delicate?"
+
+This courteous pair made no allusion to her lameness, but Gervaise
+felt it to be in their minds. She sat stiff and still before them, her
+thin shawl with its yellow palm leaves wrapped closely about her, and
+answered in monosyllables, as if before her judges. Coupeau, realizing
+her sufferings, cried out:
+
+"This is all nonsense you are talking! What I want to know is if the
+day will suit you, July twenty-ninth."
+
+"One day is the same as another to us," answered his sister severely.
+"Lorilleux can do as he pleases in regard to being your witness. I
+only ask for peace."
+
+Gervaise, in her embarrassment, had been pushing about with her feet
+some of the rubbish on the floor; then fearing she had done some harm,
+she stooped to ascertain. Lorilleux hastily approached her with a lamp
+and looked at her fingers with evident suspicion.
+
+"Take care," he said. "Those small bits of gold stick to the shoes
+sometimes and are carried off without your knowing it."
+
+This was a matter of some importance, of course, for his employers
+weighed what they entrusted to him. He showed the hare's-foot with
+which he brushed the particles of gold from the table and the skin
+spread on his knees to receive them. Twice each week the shop was
+carefully brushed; all the rubbish was kept and burned, and the ashes
+were examined, where were found each month twenty-five or thirty
+francs of gold.
+
+Mme Lorilleux did not take her eyes from the shoes of her guest.
+
+"If Mademoiselle would be so kind," she murmured with an amiable
+smile, "and would just look at her soles herself. There is no cause
+for offense, I am sure!"
+
+Gervaise, indignant and scarlet, reseated herself and held up her
+shoes for examination. Coupeau opened the door with a gay good night,
+and she followed him into the corridor after a word or two of polite
+farewell.
+
+The Lorilleuxs turned to their work at the end of their room where
+the tiny forge still glittered. The woman with her chemise slipped off
+her shoulder which was red with the reflection from the brazier, was
+drawing out another wire, the muscles in her throat swelling with her
+exertions.
+
+The husband, stooping under the green light of the ball of water, was
+again busy with his pincers, not stopping even to wipe the sweat from
+his brow.
+
+When Gervaise emerged from the narrow corridors on the sixth landing
+she said with tears in her eyes:
+
+"This certainly does not promise very well!"
+
+Coupeau shook his head angrily. Lorilleux should pay for this evening!
+Was there ever such a miser? To care if one carried off three grains
+of gold in the dust on one's shoes. All the stories his sister told
+were pure fictions and malice. His sister never meant him to marry;
+his eating with them saved her at least four sous daily. But he did
+not care whether they appeared on the twenty-ninth of July or not;
+he could get along without them perfectly well.
+
+But Gervaise, as she descended the staircase, felt her heart swell
+with pain and fear. She did not like the strange shadows on the dimly
+lit stairs. From behind the doors, now closed, came the heavy
+breathing of sleepers who had gone to their beds on rising from the
+table. A faint laugh was heard from one room, while a slender thread
+of light filtered through the keyhole of the old lady who was still
+busy with her dolls, cutting out the gauze dresses with squeaking
+scissors. A child was crying on the next floor, and the smell from
+the sinks was worse than ever and seemed something tangible amid this
+silent darkness. Then in the courtyard, while Coupeau pulled the cord,
+Gervaise turned and examined the house once more. It seemed enormous
+as it stood black against the moonless sky. The gray facades rose tall
+and spectral; the windows were all shut. No clothes fluttered in the
+breeze; there was literally not the smallest look of life, except in
+the few windows that were still lighted. From the damp corner of the
+courtyard came the drip-drip of the fountain. Suddenly it seemed to
+Gervaise as if the house were striding toward her and would crush her
+to the earth. A moment later she smiled at her foolish fancy.
+
+"Take care!" cried Coupeau.
+
+And as she passed out of the courtyard she was compelled to jump over
+a little sea which had run from the dyer's. This time the water was
+blue, as blue as the summer sky, and the reflection of the lamps
+carried by the concierge was like the stars themselves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+A MARRIAGE OF THE PEOPLE
+
+
+Gervaise did not care for any great wedding. Why should they spend
+their money so foolishly? Then, too, she felt a little ashamed and
+did not care to parade their marriage before the whole _Quartier_.
+But Coupeau objected. It would never do not to have some
+festivities--a little drive and a supper, perhaps, at a restaurant;
+he would ask for nothing more. He vowed that no one should drink too
+much and finally obtained the young woman's consent and organized a
+picnic at five francs per head at the Moulin d'Argent, Boulevard de
+la Chapelle. He was a small wine merchant who had a garden back of
+his restaurant. He made out a list. Among others appeared the names of
+two of his comrades, Bibi-la-Grillade and Mes-Bottes. It was true that
+Mes-Bottes crooked his elbow, but he was so deliciously funny that he
+was always invited to picnics. Gervaise said she, in her turn, would
+bring her employer, Mme Fauconnier--all told, there would be fifteen
+at the table. That was quite enough.
+
+Now as Coupeau was literally penniless, he borrowed fifty francs from
+his employer. He first bought his wedding ring; it cost twelve francs
+out of the shop, but his brother-in-law purchased it for him for nine
+at the factory. He then ordered an overcoat, pantaloons and vest
+from a tailor to whom he paid twenty-five francs on account. His
+patent-leather shoes and his bolivar could last awhile longer. Then
+he put aside his ten francs for the picnic, which was what he and
+Gervaise must pay, and they had precisely six francs remaining, the
+price of a Mass at the altar of the poor. He had no liking for those
+black frocks, and it broke his heart to give these beloved francs
+to them. But a marriage without a Mass, he had heard, was really
+no marriage at all.
+
+He went to the church to see if he could not drive a better bargain,
+and for an hour he fought with a stout little priest in a dirty
+soutane who, finally declaring that God could never bless such a
+union, agreed that the Mass should cost only five francs. Thus Coupeau
+had twenty sous in hand with which to begin the world!
+
+Gervaise, in her turn, had made her preparations, had worked late
+into the night and laid aside thirty francs. She had set her heart
+on a silk mantelet marked thirteen francs, which she had seen in a
+shopwindow. She paid for it and bought for ten francs from the husband
+of a laundress who had died in Mme Fauconnier's house a delaine dress
+of a deep blue, which she made over entirely. With the seven francs
+that remained she bought a rose for her cap, a pair of white cotton
+gloves and shoes for Claude. Fortunately both the boys had nice
+blouses. She worked for four days mending and making; there was not
+a hole or a rip in anything. At last the evening before the important
+day arrived; Gervaise and Coupeau sat together and talked, happy that
+matters were so nearly concluded. Their arrangements were all made.
+They were to go to the mayor's office--the two sisters of Coupeau
+declared they would remain at home, their presence not being necessary
+there. Then Mother Coupeau began to weep, saying she wished to go
+early and hide in a corner, and they promised to take her.
+
+The hour fixed for the party to assemble at the Moulin d'Argent was
+one o'clock sharp. From then they were to seek an appetite on the
+Plaine-St-Denis and return by rail. Saturday morning, as he dressed,
+Coupeau thought with some anxiety of his scanty funds; he supposed
+he ought to offer a glass of wine and a slice of ham to his witnesses
+while waiting for dinner; unexpected expenses might arise; no, it was
+clear that twenty sous was not enough. He consequently, after taking
+Claude and Etienne to Mlle Boche, who promised to appear with them at
+dinner, ran to his brother-in-law and borrowed ten francs; he did it
+with reluctance, and the words stuck in his throat, for he half
+expected a refusal. Lorilleux grumbled and growled but finally lent
+the money. But Coupeau heard his sister mutter under her breath,
+"That is a good beginning."
+
+The civil marriage was fixed for half-past ten. The day was clear and
+the sun intensely hot. In order not to excite observation the bridal
+pair, the mother and the four witnesses, separated--Gervaise walked
+in front, having the arm of Lorilleux, while M. Madinier gave his
+to Mamma Coupeau; on the opposite sidewalk were Coupeau, Boche and
+Bibi-la-Grillade. These three wore black frock coats and walked with
+their arms dangling from their rounded shoulders. Boche wore yellow
+pantaloons. Bibi-la-Grillade's coat was buttoned to the chin, as he
+had no vest, and a wisp of a cravat was tied around his neck.
+
+M. Madinier was the only one who wore a dress coat, a superb coat
+with square tails, and people stared as he passed with the stout Mamma
+Coupeau in a green shawl and black bonnet with black ribbons. Gervaise
+was very sweet and gentle, wearing her blue dress and her trim little
+silk mantle. She listened graciously to Lorilleux, who, in spite of
+the warmth of the day, was nearly lost in the ample folds of a loose
+overcoat. Occasionally she would turn her head and glance across the
+street with a little smile at Coupeau, who was none too comfortable
+in his new clothes. They reached the mayor's office a half-hour too
+early, and their turn was not reached until nearly eleven. They sat in
+the corner of the office, stiff and uneasy, pushing back their chairs
+a little out of politeness each time one of the clerks passed them,
+and when the magistrate appeared they all rose respectfully. They were
+bidden to sit down again, which they did, and were the spectators of
+three marriages--the brides in white and the bridesmaids in pink and
+blue, quite fine and stylish.
+
+When their own turn came Bibi-la-Grillade had disappeared, and Boche
+hunted him up in the square, where he had gone to smoke a pipe. All
+the forms were so quickly completed that the party looked at each
+other in dismay, feeling as if they had been defrauded of half the
+ceremony. Gervaise listened with tears in her eyes, and the old lady
+wept audibly.
+
+Then they turned to the register and wrote their names in big, crooked
+letters--all but the newly made husband, who, not being able to write,
+contented himself with making a cross.
+
+Then the clerk handed the certificate to Coupeau. He, admonished by
+a touch of his wife's elbow, presented him with five sous.
+
+It was quite a long walk from the mayor's office to the church. The
+men stopped midway to take a glass of beer, and Gervaise and Mamma
+Coupeau drank some cassis with water. There was not a particle of
+shade, for the sun was directly above their heads. The beadle awaited
+them in the empty church; he hurried them toward a small chapel,
+asking them indignantly if they were not ashamed to mock at religion
+by coming so late. A priest came toward them with an ashen face, faint
+with hunger, preceded by a boy in a dirty surplice. He hurried through
+the service, gabbling the Latin phrases with sidelong glances at the
+bridal party. The bride and bridegroom knelt before the altar in
+considerable embarrassment, not knowing when it was necessary to kneel
+and when to stand and not always understanding the gestures made by
+the clerk.
+
+The witnesses thought it more convenient to stand all the time, while
+Mamma Coupeau, overcome by her tears again, shed them on a prayer book
+which she had borrowed from a neighbor.
+
+It was high noon. The last Mass was said, and the church was noisy
+with the movements of the sacristans, who were putting the chairs in
+their places. The center altar was being prepared for some fete, for
+the hammers were heard as the decorations were being nailed up. And in
+the choking dust raised by the broom of the man who was sweeping the
+corner of the small altar the priest laid his cold and withered hand
+on the heads of Gervaise and Coupeau with a sulky air, as if he were
+uniting them as a mere matter of business or to occupy the time
+between the two Masses.
+
+When the signatures were again affixed to the register in the vestry
+and the party stood outside in the sunshine, they had a sensation as
+if they had been driven at full speed and were glad to rest.
+
+"I feel as if I had been at the dentist's. We had no time to cry out
+before it was all over!"
+
+"Yes," muttered Lorilleux, "they take less than five minutes to do
+what can't be undone in all one's life! Poor Cadet-Cassis!"
+
+Gervaise kissed her new mother with tears in her eyes but with smiling
+lips. She answered the old woman gently:
+
+"Do not be afraid. I will do my best to make him happy. If things turn
+out ill it shall not be my fault."
+
+The party went at once to the Moulin d'Argent. Coupeau now walked with
+his wife some little distance in advance of the others. They whispered
+and laughed together and seemed to see neither the people nor the
+houses nor anything that was going on about them.
+
+At the restaurant Coupeau ordered at once some bread and ham; then
+seeing that Boche and Bibi-la-Grillade were really hungry, he ordered
+more wine and more meat. His mother could eat nothing, and Gervaise,
+who was dying of thirst, drank glass after glass of water barely
+reddened with wine.
+
+"This is my affair," said Coupeau, going to the counter where he paid
+four francs, five sous.
+
+The guests began to arrive. Mme Fauconnier, stout and handsome, was
+the first. She wore a percale gown, ecru ground with bright figures,
+a rose-colored cravat and a bonnet laden with flowers. Then came Mlle
+Remanjon in her scanty black dress, which seemed so entirely a part
+of herself that it was doubtful if she laid it aside at night. The
+Gaudron household followed. The husband, enormously stout, looked as
+if his vest would burst at the least movement, and his wife, who was
+nearly as huge as himself, was dressed in a delicate shade of violet
+which added to her apparent size.
+
+"Ah," cried Mme Lerat as she entered, "we are going to have a
+tremendous shower!" And she bade them all look out the window
+to see how black the clouds were.
+
+Mme Lerat, Coupeau's eldest sister, was a tall, thin woman, very
+masculine in appearance and talking through her nose, wearing a
+puce-colored dress that was much too loose for her. It was profusely
+trimmed with fringe, which made her look like a lean dog just coming
+out of the water. She brandished an umbrella as she talked, as if it
+had been a walking stick. As she kissed Gervaise she said:
+
+"You have no idea how the wind blows, and it is as hot as a blast
+from a furnace!"
+
+Everybody at once declared they had felt the storm coming all the
+morning. Three days of extreme heat, someone said, always ended in
+a gust.
+
+"It will blow over," said Coupeau with an air of confidence, "but
+I wish my sister would come, all the same."
+
+Mme Lorilleux, in fact, was very late. Mme Lerat had called for her,
+but she had not then begun to dress. "And," said the widow in her
+brother's ear, "you never saw anything like the temper she was in!"
+
+They waited another half-hour. The sky was growing blacker and
+blacker. Clouds of dust were rising along the street, and down came
+the rain. And it was in the first shower that Mme Lorilleux arrived,
+out of temper and out of breath, struggling with her umbrella, which
+she could not close.
+
+"I had ten minds," she exclaimed, "to turn back. I wanted you to wait
+until next Saturday. I knew it would rain today--I was certain of it!"
+
+Coupeau tried to calm her, but she quickly snubbed him. Was it he, she
+would like to know, who was to pay for her dress if it were spoiled?
+
+She wore black silk, so tight that the buttonholes were burst out, and
+it showed white on the shoulders,--while the skirt was so scant that
+she could not take a long step.
+
+The other women, however, looked at her silk with envy.
+
+She took no notice of Gervaise, who sat by the side of her
+mother-in-law. She called to Lorilleux and with his aid carefully
+wiped every drop of rain from her dress with her handkerchief.
+
+Meanwhile the shower ceased abruptly, but the storm was evidently not
+over, for sharp flashes of lightning darted through the black clouds.
+
+Suddenly the rain poured down again. The men stood in front of the
+door with their hands in their pockets, dismally contemplating the
+scene. The women crouched together with their hands over their eyes.
+They were in such terror they could not talk; when the thunder was
+heard farther off they all plucked up their spirits and became
+impatient, but a fine rain was falling that looked interminable.
+
+"What are we to do?" cried Mme Lorilleux crossly.
+
+Then Mlle Remanjon timidly observed that the sun perhaps would soon
+be out, and they might yet go into the country; upon this there was
+one general shout of derision.
+
+"Nice walking it would be! And how pleasant the grass would be to sit
+upon!"
+
+Something must be done, however, to get rid of the time until dinner.
+Bibi-la-Grillade proposed cards; Mme Lerat suggested storytelling.
+To each proposition a thousand objections were offered. Finally when
+Lorilleux proposed that the party should visit the tomb of Abelard
+and Heloise his wife's indignation burst forth.
+
+She had dressed in her best only to be drenched in the rain and to
+spend the day in a wineshop, it seemed! She had had enough of the
+whole thing and she would go home. Coupeau and Lorilleux held the
+door, she exclaiming violently:
+
+"Let me go; I tell you I will go!"
+
+Her husband having induced her to listen to reason, Coupeau went to
+Gervaise, who was calmly conversing with her mother-in-law and Mme
+Fauconnier.
+
+"Have you nothing to propose?" he asked, not venturing to add any term
+of endearment.
+
+"No," she said with a smile, "but I am ready to do anything you wish.
+I am very well suited as I am."
+
+Her face was indeed as sunny as a morning in May. She spoke to
+everyone kindly and sympathetically. During the storm she had sat
+with her eyes riveted on the clouds, as if by the light of those
+lurid flashes she was reading the solemn book of the future.
+
+M. Madinier had proposed nothing; he stood leaning against the counter
+with a pompous air; he spat upon the ground, wiped his mouth with the
+back of his hand and rolled his eyes about.
+
+"We could go to the Musee du Louvre, I suppose," and he smoothed his
+chin while awaiting the effect of this proposition.
+
+"There are antiquities there--statues, pictures, lots of things. It
+is very instructive. Have any of you been there?" he asked.
+
+They all looked at each other. Gervaise had never even heard of the
+place, nor had Mme Fauconnier nor Boche. Coupeau thought he had been
+there one Sunday, but he was not sure, but Mme Lorilleux, on whom
+Madinier's air of importance had produced a profound impression,
+approved of the idea. The day was wasted anyway; therefore, if a
+little instruction could be got it would be well to try it. As
+the rain was still falling, they borrowed old umbrellas of every
+imaginable hue from the establishment and started forth for the
+Musee du Louvre.
+
+There were twelve of them, and they walked in couples, Mme Lorilleux
+with Madinier, to whom she grumbled all the way.
+
+"We know nothing about her," she said, "not even where he picked her
+up. My husband has already lent them ten francs, and whoever heard of
+a bride without a single relation? She said she had a sister in Paris.
+Where is she today, I should like to know!"
+
+She checked herself and pointed to Gervaise, whose lameness was very
+perceptible as she descended the hill.
+
+"Just look at her!" she muttered. "Wooden legs!"
+
+This epithet was heard by Mme Fauconnier, who took up the cudgels for
+Gervaise who, she said, was as neat as a pin and worked like a tiger.
+
+The wedding party, coming out of La Rue St-Denis, crossed the
+boulevard under their umbrellas amid the pouring rain, driving here
+and there among the carriages. The drivers, as they pulled up their
+horses, shouted to them to look out, with an oath. On the gray and
+muddy sidewalk the procession was very conspicuous--the blue dress of
+the bride, the canary-colored breeches of one of the men, Madinier's
+square-tailed coat--all gave a carnivallike air to the group. But it
+was the hats of the party that were the most amusing, for they were
+of all heights, sizes and styles. The shopkeepers on the boulevard
+crowded to their windows to enjoy the drollery of the sight.
+The wedding procession, quite undisturbed by the observation it
+excited, went gaily on. They stopped for a moment on the Place des
+Victoires--the bride's shoestring was untied--she fastened it at the
+foot of the statue of Louis XIV, her friends waiting as she did so.
+
+Finally they reached the Louvre. Here Madinier politely asked
+permission to take the head of the party; the place was so large,
+he said, that it was a very easy thing to lose oneself; he knew the
+prettiest rooms and the things best worth seeing, because he had
+often been there with an artist, a very intelligent fellow, from
+whom a great manufacturer of pasteboard boxes bought pictures.
+
+The party entered the museum of Assyrian antiquities. They shivered
+and walked about, examining the colossal statues, the gods in black
+marble, strange beasts and monstrosities, half cats and half women.
+This was not amusing, and an inscription in Phoenician characters
+appalled them. Who on earth had ever read such stuff as that? It
+was meaningless nonsense!
+
+But Madinier shouted to them from the stairs, "Come on! That is
+nothing! Much more interesting things up here, I assure you!"
+
+The severe nudity of the great staircase cast a gloom over their
+spirits; an usher in livery added to their awe, and it was with great
+respect and on the tips of their toes they entered the French gallery.
+
+How many statues! How many pictures! They wished they had all the
+money they had cost.
+
+In the Gallerie d'Apollon the floor excited their admiration; it was
+smooth as glass; even the feet of the sofas were reflected in it.
+Madinier bade them look at the ceiling and at its many beauties of
+decoration, but they said they dared not look up. Then before entering
+the Salon Carre he pointed to the window and said:
+
+"That is the balcony where Charles IX fired on the people!"
+
+With a magnificent gesture he ordered his party to stand still in the
+center of the Salon Carre.
+
+"There are only chefs-d'oeuvres here," he whispered as solemnly as if
+he had been in a church.
+
+They walked around the salon. Gervaise asked the meaning of one of
+the pictures, the _Noces de Cana_; Coupeau stopped before _La
+Joconde_, declaring that it was like one of his aunts.
+
+Boche and Bibi-la-Grillade snickered and pushed each other at the
+sight of the nude female figures, and the Gaudrons, husband and wife,
+stood open-mouthed and deeply touched before Murillo's Virgin.
+
+When they had been once around the room Madinier, who was quite
+attentive to Mme Lorilleux on account of her silk gown, proposed
+they should do it over again; it was well worth it, he said.
+
+He never hesitated in replying to any question which she addressed
+to him in her thirst for information, and when she stopped before
+Titian's Mistress, whose yellow hair struck her as like her own, he
+told her it was a mistress of Henri IV, who was the heroine of a play
+then running at the Ambigu.
+
+The wedding party finally entered the long gallery devoted to the
+Italian and Flemish schools of art. The pictures were all meaningless
+to them, and their heads were beginning to ache. They felt a thrill
+of interest, however, in the copyists with their easels, who painted
+without being disturbed by spectators. The artists scattered through
+the rooms had heard that a primitive wedding party was making a tour
+of the Louvre and hurried with laughing faces to enjoy the scene,
+while the weary bride and bridegroom, accompanied by their friends,
+clumsily moved about over the shining, resounding floors much like
+cattle let loose and with quite as keen an appreciation of the
+marvelous beauties about them.
+
+The women vowed their backs were broken standing so long, and
+Madinier, declaring he knew the way, said they would leave after he
+had shown them a certain room to which he could go with his eyes shut.
+But he was very much mistaken. Salon succeeded to salon, and finally
+the party went up a flight of stairs and found themselves among
+cannons and other instruments of war. Madinier, unwilling to confess
+that he had lost himself, wandered distractedly about, declaring that
+the doors had been changed. The party began to feel that they were
+there for life, when suddenly to their great joy they heard the cry
+of the janitors resounding from room to room.
+
+"Time to close the doors!"
+
+They meekly followed one of them, and when they were outside they
+uttered a sigh of relief as they put up their umbrellas once more,
+but one and all affected great pleasure at having been to the Louvre.
+
+The clock struck four. There were two hours to dispose of before
+dinner. The women would have liked to rest, but the men were more
+energetic and proposed another walk, during which so tremendous a
+shower fell that umbrellas were useless and dresses were irretrievably
+ruined. Then M. Madinier suggested that they should ascend the column
+on the Place Vendome.
+
+"It is not a bad idea," cried the men. And the procession began the
+ascent of the spiral staircase, which Boche said was so old that he
+could feel it shake. This terrified the ladies, who uttered little
+shrieks, but Coupeau said nothing; his arm was around his wife's
+waist, and just as they emerged upon the platform he kissed her.
+
+"Upon my word!" cried Mme Lorilleux, much scandalized.
+
+Madinier again constituted himself master of ceremonies and pointed
+out all the monuments, but Mme Fauconnier would not put her foot
+outside the little door; she would not look down on that pavement for
+all the world, she said, and the party soon tired of this amusement
+and descended the stairs. At the foot Madinier wished to pay, but
+Coupeau interfered and put into the hand of the guard twenty-four
+sous--two for each person. It was now half-past five; they had just
+time to get to the restaurant, but Coupeau proposed a glass of
+vermouth first, and they entered a cabaret for that purpose.
+
+When they returned to the Moulin d'Argent they found Mme Boche with
+the two children, talking to Mamma Coupeau near the table, already
+spread and waiting. When Gervaise saw Claude and Etienne she took
+them both on her knees and kissed them lovingly.
+
+"Have they been good?" she asked.
+
+"I should think Coupeau would feel rather queer!" said Mme Lorilleux
+as she looked on grimly.
+
+Gervaise had been calm and smiling all day, but she had quietly
+watched her husband with the Lorilleuxs. She thought Coupeau was
+afraid of his sister--cowardly, in fact. The evening previous he had
+said he did not care a sou for their opinion on any subject and that
+they had the tongues of vipers, but now he was with them, he was like
+a whipped hound, hung on their words and anticipated their wishes.
+This troubled his wife, for it augured ill, she thought, for their
+future happiness.
+
+"We won't wait any longer for Mes-Bottes," cried Coupeau. "We are all
+here but him, and his scent is good! Surely he can't be waiting for us
+still at St-Denis!"
+
+The guests, in good spirits once more, took their seats with a great
+clatter of chairs.
+
+Gervaise was between Lorilleux and Madinier, and Coupeau between Mme
+Fauconnier and his sister Mme Lorilleux. The others seated themselves.
+
+"No one has asked a blessing," said Boche as the ladies pulled the
+tablecloth well over their skirts to protect them from spots.
+
+But Mme Lorilleux frowned at this poor jest. The vermicelli soup,
+which was cold and greasy, was eaten with noisy haste. Two
+_garcons_ served them, wearing aprons of a very doubtful white
+and greasy vests.
+
+Through the four windows, open on the courtyard and its acacias,
+streamed the light, soft and warm, after the storm. The trees, bathed
+in the setting sun, imparted a cool, green tinge to the dingy room,
+and the shadows of the waving branches and quivering leaves danced
+over the cloth.
+
+There were two fly-specked mirrors at either end of the room, which
+indefinitely lengthened the table spread with thick china. Every time
+the _garcons_ opened the door into the kitchen there came a strong
+smell of burning fat.
+
+"Don't let us all talk at once!" said Boche as a dead silence fell on
+the room, broken by the abrupt entrance of Mes-Bottes.
+
+"You are nice people!" he exclaimed. "I have been waiting for you
+until I am wet through and have a fishpond in each pocket."
+
+This struck the circle as the height of wit, and they all laughed
+while he ordered the _garcon_ to and fro. He devoured three plates of
+soup and enormous slices of bread. The head of the establishment came
+and looked in in considerable anxiety; a laugh ran around the room.
+Mes-Bottes recalled to their memories a day when he had eaten twelve
+hard-boiled eggs and drunk twelve glasses of wine while the clock was
+striking twelve.
+
+There was a brief silence. A waiter placed on the table a rabbit stew
+in a deep dish. Coupeau turned round.
+
+"Say, boy, is that a gutter rabbit? It mews still."
+
+And the low mewing of a cat seemed, indeed, to come from the dish.
+This delicate joke was perpetrated by Coupeau in the throat, without
+the smallest movement of his lips. This feat always met with such
+success that he never ordered a meal anywhere without a rabbit stew.
+The ladies wiped their eyes with their napkins because they laughed
+so much.
+
+Mme Fauconnier begged for the head--she adored the head--and Boche
+asked especially for onions.
+
+Mme Lerat compressed her lips and said morosely:
+
+"Of course. I might have known that!"
+
+Mme Lerat was a hard-working woman. No man had ever put his nose
+within her door since her widowhood, and yet her instincts were
+thoroughly bad; every word uttered by others bore to her ears a double
+meaning, a coarse allusion sometimes so deeply veiled that no one but
+herself could grasp its meaning.
+
+Boche leaned over her with a sensual smile and entreated an
+explanation. She shook her head.
+
+"Of course," she repeated. "Onions! I knew it!"
+
+Everybody was talking now, each of his own trade. Madinier declared
+that boxmaking was an art, and he cited the New Year bonbon boxes as
+wonders of luxury. Lorilleux talked of his chains, of their delicacy
+and beauty. He said that in former times jewelers wore swords at their
+sides. Coupeau described a weathercock made by one of his comrades out
+of tin. Mme Lerat showed Bibi-la-Grillade how a rose stem was made by
+rolling the handle of her knife between her bony fingers, and Mme
+Fauconnier complained loudly of one of her apprentices who the night
+before had badly scorched a pair of linen sheets.
+
+"It is no use to talk!" cried Lorilleux, striking his fist on the
+table. "Gold is gold!"
+
+A profound silence followed the utterance of this truism, amid which
+arose from the other end of the table the piping tones of Mlle
+Remanjon's voice as she said:
+
+"And then I sew on the skirt. I stick a pin in the head to hold on
+the cap, and it is done. They sell for three cents."
+
+She was describing her dolls to Mes-Bottes, whose jaws worked
+steadily, like machinery.
+
+He did not listen, but he nodded at intervals, with his eyes fixed
+on the _garcons_ to see that they carried away no dishes that were
+not emptied.
+
+There had been veal cutlets and string beans served. As a _roti,_
+two lean chickens on a bed of water cresses were brought in. The room
+was growing very warm; the sun was lingering on the tops of the
+acacias, but the room was growing dark. The men threw off their coats
+and ate in their shirt sleeves.
+
+"Mme Boche," cried Gervaise, "please don't let those children eat
+so much."
+
+But Mme Coupeau interposed and declared that for once in a while a
+little fit of indigestion would do them no harm.
+
+Mme Boche accused her husband of holding Mme Lerat's hand under the
+table.
+
+Madinier talked politics. He was a Republican, and Bibi-la-Grillade
+and himself were soon in a hot discussion.
+
+"Who cares," cried Coupeau, "whether we have a king, an emperor or
+a president, so long as we earn our five francs per day!"
+
+Lorilleux shook his head. He was born on the same day as the Comte de
+Chambord, September 29, 1820, and this coincidence dwelt in his mind.
+He seemed to feel that there was a certain connection between the
+return of the king to France and his own personal fortunes. He did
+not say distinctly what he expected, but it was clear that it was
+something very agreeable.
+
+The dessert was now on the table--a floating island flanked by two
+plates of cheese and two of fruit. The floating island was a great
+success. Mes-Bottes ate all the cheese and called for more bread. And
+then as some of the custard was left in the dish, he pulled it toward
+him and ate it as if it had been soup.
+
+"How extraordinary!" said Madinier, filled with admiration.
+
+The men rose to light their pipes and, as they passed Mes-Bottes,
+asked him how he felt.
+
+Bibi-la-Grillade lifted him from the floor, chair and all.
+
+"Zounds!" he cried. "The fellow's weight has doubled!"
+
+Coupeau declared his friend had only just begun his night's work,
+that he would eat bread until dawn. The waiters, pale with fright,
+disappeared. Boche went downstairs on a tour of inspection and
+stated that the establishment was in a state of confusion, that the
+proprietor, in consternation, had sent out to all the bakers in the
+neighborhood, that the house, in fact, had an utterly ruined aspect.
+
+"I should not like to take you to board," said Mme Gaudron.
+
+"Let us have a punch," cried Mes-Bottes.
+
+But Coupeau, seeing his wife's troubled face, interfered and said no
+one should drink anything more. They had all had enough.
+
+This declaration met with the approval of some of the party, but the
+others sided with Mes-Bottes.
+
+"Those who are thirsty are thirsty," he said. "No one need drink that
+does not wish to do so, I am sure." And he added with a wink, "There
+will be all the more for those who do!"
+
+Then Coupeau said they would settle the account, and his friend could
+do as he pleased afterward.
+
+Alas! Mes-Bottes could produce only three francs; he had changed his
+five-franc piece, and the remainder had melted away somehow on the
+road from St-Denis. He handed over the three francs, and Coupeau,
+greatly indignant, borrowed the other two from his brother-in-law,
+who gave the money secretly, being afraid of his wife.
+
+M. Madinier had taken a plate. The ladies each laid down their five
+francs quietly and timidly, and then the men retreated to the other
+end of the room and counted up the amount, and each man added to his
+subscription five sous for the _garcon_.
+
+But when M. Madinier sent for the proprietor the little assembly were
+shocked at hearing him say that this was not all; there were "extras."
+
+As this was received with exclamations of rage, he went into
+explanations. He had furnished twenty-five liters of wine instead of
+twenty, as he agreed. The floating island was an addition, on seeing
+that the dessert was somewhat scanty, whereupon ensued a formidable
+quarrel. Coupeau declared he would not pay a sou of the extras.
+
+"There is your money," he said; "take it, and never again will one
+of us step a foot under your roof!"
+
+"I want six francs more," muttered the man.
+
+The women gathered about in great indignation; not a centime would
+they give, they declared.
+
+Mme Fauconnier had had a wretched dinner; she said she could have had
+a better one at home for forty sous. Such arrangements always turned
+out badly, and Mme Gaudron declared aloud that if people wanted their
+friends at their weddings they usually invited them out and out.
+
+Gervaise took refuge with her mother-in-law in a distant window,
+feeling heartily ashamed of the whole scene.
+
+M. Madinier went downstairs with the man, and low mutterings of the
+storm reached the party. At the end of a half-hour he reappeared,
+having yielded to the extent of paying three francs, but no one was
+satisfied, and they all began a discussion in regard to the extras.
+
+The evening was spoiled, as was Mme Lerat's dress; there was no end
+to the chapter of accidents.
+
+"I know," cried Mme Lorilleux, "that the _garcon_ spilled gravy
+from the chickens down my back." She twisted and turned herself
+before the mirror until she succeeded in finding the spot.
+
+"Yes, I knew it," she cried, "and he shall pay for it, as true as
+I live. I wish I had remained at home!"
+
+She left in a rage, and Lorilleux at her heels.
+
+When Coupeau saw her go he was in actual consternation, and Gervaise
+saw that it was best to make a move at once. Mme Boche had agreed to
+keep the children with her for a day or two.
+
+Coupeau and his wife hurried out in the hope of overtaking Mme
+Lorilleux which they soon did. Lorilleux, with the kindly desire
+of making all smooth said:
+
+"We will go to your door with you."
+
+"Your door, indeed!" cried his wife, and then pleasantly went on to
+express her surprise that they did not postpone their marriage until
+they had saved enough to buy a little furniture and move away from
+that hole up under the roof.
+
+"But I have given up that room," said her brother. "We shall have
+the one Gervaise occupies; it is larger."
+
+Mme Lorilleux forgot herself; she wheeled around suddenly.
+
+"What!" she exclaimed. "You are going to live in Wooden Legs' room?"
+
+Gervaise turned pale. This name she now heard for the first time,
+and it was like a slap in the face. She heard much more in her
+sister-in-law's exclamation than met the ear. That room to which
+allusion was made was the one where she had lived with Lantier for a
+whole month, where she had wept such bitter tears, but Coupeau did not
+understand that; he was only wounded by the name applied to his wife.
+
+"It is hardly wise of you," he said sullenly, "to nickname people
+after that fashion, as perhaps you are not aware of what you are
+called in your _Quartier_. Cow's-Tail is not a very nice name,
+but they have given it to you on account of your hair. Why should
+we not keep that room? It is a very good one."
+
+Mme Lorilleux would not answer. Her dignity was sadly disturbed at
+being called Cow's-Tail.
+
+They walked on in silence until they reached the Hotel Boncœur, and
+just as Coupeau gave the two women a push toward each other and bade
+them kiss and be friends, a man who wished to pass them on the right
+gave a violent lurch to the left and came between them.
+
+"Look out!" cried Lorilleux. "It is Father Bazonge. He is pretty full
+tonight."
+
+Gervaise, in great terror, flew toward the door. Father Bazonge was
+a man of fifty; his clothes were covered with mud where he had fallen
+in the street.
+
+"You need not be afraid," continued Lorilleux; "he will do you no
+harm. He is a neighbor of ours--the third room on the left in our
+corridor."
+
+But Father Bazonge was talking to Gervaise. "I am not going to eat
+you, little one," he said. "I have drunk too much, I know very well,
+but when the work is done the machinery should be greased a little
+now and then."
+
+Gervaise retreated farther into the doorway and with difficulty kept
+back a sob. She nervously entreated Coupeau to take the man away.
+
+Bazonge staggered off, muttering as he did so:
+
+"You won't mind it so much one of these days, my dear. I know
+something about women. They make a great fuss, but they get used
+to it all the same."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+A HAPPY HOME
+
+
+Four years of hard and incessant toil followed this day. Gervaise and
+Coupeau were wise and prudent. They worked hard and took a little
+relaxation on Sundays. The wife worked twelve hours of the twenty-four
+with Mme Fauconnier and yet found time to keep her own home like
+waxwork. The husband was never known to be tipsy but brought home his
+wages and smoked his pipe at his own window at night before going to
+bed. They were the bright and shining lights, the good example of the
+whole _Quartier_, and as they made jointly about nine francs per
+day, it was easy to see they were putting by money.
+
+But in the first few months of their married life they were obliged to
+trim their sails closely and had some trouble to make both ends meet.
+They took a great dislike to the Hotel Boncœur. They longed for a
+home of their own with their own furniture. They estimated the cost
+over and over again and decided that for three hundred and fifty
+francs they could venture, but they had little hope of saving such a
+sum in less than two years, when a stroke of good luck befell them.
+
+An old gentleman in Plassans sent for Claude to place him at school.
+He was a very eccentric old gentleman, fond of pictures and art.
+Claude was a great expense to his mother, and when Etienne alone was
+at home they saved the three hundred and fifty francs in seven months.
+The day they purchased their furniture they took a long and happy walk
+together, for it was an important step they had taken--important not
+only in their own eyes but in those of the people around them.
+
+For two months they had been looking for an apartment. They wished,
+of all things, to take one in the old house where Mme Lorilleux
+lived, but there was not one single room to be rented, and they were
+compelled to relinquish the idea. Gervaise was reconciled to this more
+easily, since she did not care to be thrown in any closer contact with
+the Lorilleuxs. They looked further. It was essential that Gervaise
+should be near her friend and employer Mme Fauconnier, and they
+finally succeeded in their search and were indeed in wonderful luck,
+for they obtained a large room with a kitchen and tiny bedroom just
+opposite the establishment of the laundress. It was a small house,
+two stories, with one steep staircase, and was divided into two
+lodgings--the one on the right, the other on the left, while the
+lower floor was occupied by a carriage maker.
+
+Gervaise was delighted. It seemed to her that she was once more in the
+country--no neighbors, no gossip, no interference--and from the place
+where she stood and ironed all day at Mme Fauconnier's she could see
+the windows of her own room.
+
+They moved in the month of April. Gervaise was then near her
+confinement, but it was she who cleaned and put in order her new home.
+Every penny as of consequence, she said with pride, now that they
+would soon have another other mouth to feed. She rubbed her furniture,
+which was of old mahogany, good, but secondhand, until it shone like
+glass and was quite brokenhearted when she discovered a scratch. She
+held her breath if she knocked it when sweeping. The commode was her
+especial pride; it was so dignified and stately. Her pet dream, which,
+however, she kept to herself, was someday to have a clock to put
+in the center of the marble slab. If there had not been a baby in
+prospect she would have purchased this much-coveted article at once,
+but she sighed and dismissed the thought.
+
+Etienne's bed was placed in the tiny room, almost a closet, and there
+was room for the cradle by its side. The kitchen was about as big as
+one's hand and very dark, but by leaving the door open one could see
+pretty well, and as Gervaise had no big dinners to get she managed
+comfortably. The large room was her pride. In the morning the white
+curtains of the alcove were drawn, and the bedroom was transformed
+into a lovely dining room, with its table in the middle, the commode
+and a wardrobe opposite each other. A tiny stove kept them warm in
+cold weather for seven sous per day.
+
+Coupeau ornamented the walls with several engravings--one of a marshal
+of France on a spirited steed, with his baton in his hand. Above the
+commode were the photographs of the family, arranged in two lines,
+with an antique china _benitier_ between. On the corners of the
+commode a bust of Pascal faced another of Beranger--one grave, the
+other smiling. It was, indeed, a fair and pleasant home.
+
+"How much do you think we pay here?" Gervaise would ask of each new
+visitor.
+
+And when too high an estimate was given she was charmed.
+
+"One hundred and fifty francs--not a penny more," she would exclaim.
+"Is it not wonderful?"
+
+No small portion of the woman's satisfaction arose from an acacia
+which grew in her courtyard, one of whose branches crossed her window,
+and the scanty foliage was a whole wilderness to her.
+
+Her baby was born one afternoon. She would not allow her husband to be
+sent for, and when he came gaily into the room he was welcomed by his
+pale wife, who whispered to him as he stooped over her:
+
+"My dear, it is a girl."
+
+"All right!" said the tinworker, jesting to hide his real emotion.
+"I ordered a girl. You always do just what I want!"
+
+He took up the child.
+
+"Let us have a good look at you, young lady! The down on the top of
+your head is pretty black, I think. Now you must never squall but be
+as good and reasonable always as your papa and mamma."
+
+Gervaise, with a faint smile and sad eyes, looked at her daughter. She
+shook her head. She would have preferred a boy, because boys run less
+risks in a place like Paris. The nurse took the baby from the father's
+hands and told Gervaise she must not talk. Coupeau said he must go and
+tell his mother and sister the news, but he was famished and must eat
+something first. His wife was greatly disturbed at seeing him wait
+upon himself, and she tossed about a little and complained that she
+could not make him comfortable.
+
+"You must be quiet," said the nurse again.
+
+"It is lucky you are here, or she would be up and cutting my bread
+for me," said Coupeau.
+
+He finally set forth to announce the news to his family and returned
+in an hour with them all.
+
+The Lorilleuxs, under the influence of the prosperity of their brother
+and his wife, had become extremely amiable toward them and only lifted
+their eyebrows in a significant sort of way, as much as to say that
+they could tell something if they pleased.
+
+"You must not talk, you understand," said Coupeau, "but they would
+come and take a peep at you, and I am going to make them some coffee."
+
+He disappeared into the kitchen, and the women discussed the size of
+the baby and whom it resembled. Meanwhile Coupeau was heard banging
+round in the kitchen, and his wife nervously called out to him and
+told him where the things were that he wanted, but her husband rose
+superior to all difficulties and soon appeared with the smoking
+coffeepot, and they all seated themselves around the table, except the
+nurse, who drank a cup standing and then departed; all was going well,
+and she was not needed. If she was wanted in the morning they could
+send for her.
+
+Gervaise lay with a faint smile on her lips. She only half heard what
+was said by those about her. She had no strength to speak; it seemed
+to her that she was dead. She heard the word baptism. Coupeau saw no
+necessity for the ceremony and was quite sure, too, that the child
+would take cold. In his opinion, the less one had to do with priests,
+the better. His mother was horrified and called him a heathen, while
+the Lorilleuxs claimed to be religious people also.
+
+"It had better be on Sunday," said his sister in a decided tone, and
+Gervaise consented with a little nod. Everybody kissed her and then
+the baby, addressing it with tender epithets, as if it could
+understand, and departed.
+
+When Coupeau was alone with his wife he took her hand and held it
+while he finished his pipe.
+
+"I could not help their coming," he said, "but I am sure they have
+given you the headache." And the rough, clumsy man kissed his wife
+tenderly, moved by a great pity for all she had borne for his sake.
+
+And Gervaise was very happy. She told him so and said her only anxiety
+now was to be on her feet again as soon as possible, for they had
+another mouth to feed. He soothed her and asked if she could not trust
+him to look out for their little one.
+
+In the morning when he went to his work he sent Mme Boche to spend the
+day with his wife, who at night told him she never could consent to
+lie still any longer and see a stranger going about her room, and the
+next day she was up and would not be taken care of again. She had no
+time for such nonsense! She said it would do for rich women but not
+for her, and in another week she was at Mme Fauconnier's again at
+work.
+
+Mme Lorilleux, who was the baby's godmother, appeared on Saturday
+evening with a cap and baptismal robe, which she had bought cheap
+because they had lost their first freshness. The next day Lorilleux,
+as godfather, gave Gervaise six pounds of sugar. They flattered
+themselves they knew how to do things properly and that evening, at
+the supper given by Coupeau, did not appear empty-handed. Lorilleux
+came with a couple of bottles of wine under each arm, and his wife
+brought a large custard which was a specialty of a certain restaurant.
+
+Yes, they knew how to do things, these people, but they also liked
+to tell of what they did, and they told everyone they saw in the next
+month that they had spent twenty francs, which came to the ears of
+Gervaise, who was none too well pleased.
+
+It was at this supper that Gervaise became acquainted with her
+neighbors on the other side of the house. These were Mme Goujet, a
+widow, and her son. Up to this time they had exchanged a good morning
+when they met on the stairs or in the street, but as Mme Goujet had
+rendered some small services on the first day of her illness, Gervaise
+invited them on the occasion of the baptism.
+
+These people were from the _Department du Nond_. The mother
+repaired laces, while the son, a blacksmith by trade, worked in
+a factory.
+
+They had lived in their present apartment for five years. Beneath the
+peaceful calm of their lives lay a great sorrow. Goujet, the husband
+and father, had killed a man in a fit of furious intoxication
+and then, while in prison, had choked himself with his pocket
+handkerchief. His widow and child left Lille after this and came to
+Paris, with the weight of this tragedy on their hearts and heads, and
+faced the future with indomitable courage and sweet patience. Perhaps
+they were overproud and reserved, for they held themselves aloof
+from those about them. Mme Goujet always wore mourning, and her pale,
+serene face was encircled with nunlike bands of white. Goujet was a
+colossus of twenty-three with a clear, fresh complexion and honest
+eyes. At the manufactory he went by the name of the Gueule-d'Or on
+account of his beautiful blond beard.
+
+Gervaise took a great fancy to these people and when she first entered
+their apartment and was charmed with the exquisite cleanliness of all
+she saw. Mme Goujet opened the door into her son's room to show it
+to her. It was as pretty and white as the chamber of a young girl.
+A narrow iron bed, white curtains and quilt, a dressing table and
+bookshelves made up the furniture. A few colored engravings were
+pinned against the wall, and Mme Goujet said that her son was a good
+deal of a boy still--he liked to look at pictures rather than read.
+Gervaise sat for an hour with her neighbor, watching her at work with
+her cushion, its numberless pins and the pretty lace.
+
+The more she saw of her new friends the better Gervaise liked them.
+They were frugal but not parsimonious. They were the admiration of
+the neighborhood. Goujet was never seen with a hole or a spot on his
+garments. He was very polite to all but a little diffident, in spite
+of his height and broad shoulders. The girls in the street were much
+amused to see him look away when they met him; he did not fancy their
+ways--their forward boldness and loud laughs. One day he came home
+tipsy. His mother uttered no word of reproach but brought out a
+picture of his father which was piously preserved in her wardrobe. And
+after that lesson Goujet drank no more liquor, though he conceived no
+hatred for wine.
+
+On Sunday he went out with his mother, who was his idol. He went to
+her with all his troubles and with all his joys, as he had done when
+little.
+
+At first he took no interest in Gervaise, but after a while he began
+to like her and treated her like a sister, with abrupt familiarity.
+
+Cadet-Cassis, who was a thorough Parisian, thought Gueule-d'Or very
+stupid. What was the sense of turning away from all the pretty girls
+he met in the street? But this did not prevent the two young fellows
+from liking each other very heartily.
+
+For three years the lives of these people flowed tranquilly on
+without an event. Gervaise had been elevated in the laundry where
+she worked, had higher wages and decided to place Etienne at school.
+Notwithstanding all her expenses of the household, they were able to
+save twenty and thirty francs each month. When these savings amounted
+to six hundred francs Gervaise could not rest, so tormented was she by
+ambitious dreams. She wished to open a small establishment herself and
+hire apprentices in her turn. She hesitated, naturally, to take the
+definite steps and said they would look around for a shop that would
+answer their purpose; their money in the savings bank was quietly
+rolling up. She had bought her clock, the object of her ambition; it
+was to be paid for in a year--so much each month. It was a wonderful
+clock, rosewood with fluted columns and gilt moldings and pendulum.
+She kept her bankbook under the glass shade, and often when she was
+thinking of her shop she stood with her eyes fixed on the clock, as
+if she were waiting for some especial and solemn moment.
+
+The Coupeaus and the Goujets now went out on Sundays together. It was
+an orderly party with a dinner at some quiet restaurant. The men drank
+a glass or two of wine and came home with the ladies and counted up
+and settled the expenditures of the day before they separated.
+The Lorilleuxs were bitterly jealous of these new friends of their
+brother's. They declared it had a very queer look to see him and his
+wife always with strangers rather than with his own family, and Mme
+Lorilleux began to say hateful things again of Gervaise. Mme Lerat,
+on the contrary, took her part, while Mamma Coupeau tried to please
+everyone.
+
+The day that Nana--which was the pet name given to the little
+girl--was three years old Coupeau, on coming in, found his wife in
+a state of great excitement. She refused to give any explanation,
+saying, in fact, there really was nothing the matter, but she finally
+became so abstracted that she stood still with the plates in her hand
+as she laid the table for dinner, and her husband insisted on an
+explanation.
+
+"If you must know," she said, "that little shop in La Rue de la
+Goutte-d'Or is vacant. I heard so only an hour ago, and it struck
+me all of a heap!"
+
+It was a very nice shop in the very house of which they had so often
+thought. There was the shop itself--a back room--and two others. They
+were small, to be sure, but convenient and well arranged; only she
+thought it dear--five hundred francs.
+
+"You asked the price then?"
+
+"Yes, I asked it just out of curiosity," she answered with an air of
+indifference, "but it is too dear, decidedly too dear. It would be
+unwise, I think, to take it."
+
+But she could talk of nothing else the whole evening. She drew the
+plan of the rooms on the margin of a newspaper, and as she talked she
+measured the furniture, as if they were to move the next day. Then
+Coupeau, seeing her great desire to have the place, declared he would
+see the owner the next morning, for it was possible he would take less
+than five hundred francs, but how would she like to live so near his
+sister, whom she detested?
+
+Gervaise was displeased at this and said she detested no one and even
+defended the Lorilleuxs, declaring they were not so bad, after all.
+And when Coupeau was asleep her busy brain was at work arranging the
+rooms which as yet they had not decided to hire.
+
+The next day when she was alone she lifted the shade from the clock
+and opened her bankbook. Just to think that her shop and future
+prosperity lay between those dirty leaves!
+
+Before going to her work she consulted Mme Goujet, who approved of the
+plan. With a husband like hers, who never drank, she could not fail
+of success. At noon she called on her sister-in-law to ask her advice,
+for she did not wish to have the air of concealing anything from the
+family.
+
+Mme Lorilleux was confounded. What, did Wooden Legs think of having
+an establishment of her own? And with an envious heart she stammered
+out that it would be very well, certainly, but when she had recovered
+herself a little she began to talk of the dampness of the courtyard
+and of the darkness of the _rez-de-chaussee_. Oh yes, it was a
+capital place for rheumatism, but of course if her mind was made up
+anything she could say would make no difference.
+
+That night Gervaise told her husband that if he had thrown any
+obstacles in the way of her taking the shop she believed she should
+have fallen sick and died, so great was her longing. But before they
+came to any decision they must see if a diminution of the rent could
+be obtained.
+
+"We can go tomorrow if you say so," was her husband's reply; "you can
+call for me at six o'clock."
+
+Coupeau was then completing the roof of a three-storied house and
+was laying the very last sheets of zinc. It was May and a cloudless
+evening. The sun was low in the horizon, and against the blue sky the
+figure of Coupeau was clearly defined as he cut his zinc as quietly
+as a tailor might have cut out a pair of breeches in his workshop. His
+assistant, a lad of seventeen, was blowing up the furnace with a pair
+of bellows, and at each puff a great cloud of sparks arose.
+
+"Put in the irons, Zidore!" shouted Coupeau.
+
+The boy thrust the irons among the coals which showed only a dull pink
+in the sunlight and then went to work again with his bellows. Coupeau
+took up his last sheet of zinc. It was to be placed on the edge of the
+roof, near the gutter. Just at that spot the roof was very steep. The
+man walked along in his list slippers much as if he had been at home,
+whistling a popular melody. He allowed himself to slip a little and
+caught at the chimney, calling to Zidore as he did so:
+
+"Why in thunder don't you bring the irons? What are you staring at?"
+
+But Zidore, quite undisturbed, continued to stare at a cloud of heavy
+black smoke that was rising in the direction of Grenelle. He wondered
+if it were a fire, but he crawled with the irons toward Coupeau, who
+began to solder the zinc, supporting himself on the point of one foot
+or by one finger, not rashly, but with calm deliberation and perfect
+coolness. He knew what he could do and never lost his head. His pipe
+was in his mouth, and he would occasionally turn to spit down into
+the street below.
+
+"Hallo, Madame Boche!" he cried as he suddenly caught sight of his
+old friend crossing the street. "How are you today?"
+
+She looked up, laughed, and a brisk conversation ensued between the
+roof and the street. She stood with her hands under her apron and her
+face turned up, while he, with one arm round a flue, leaned over the
+side of the house.
+
+"Have you seen my wife?" he asked.
+
+"No indeed; is she anywhere round?"
+
+"She is coming for me. Is everyone well with you?"
+
+"Yes, all well, thanks. I am going to a butcher near here who sells
+cheaper than up our way."
+
+They raised their voices because a carriage was passing, and this
+brought to a neighboring window a little old woman, who stood in
+breathless horror, expecting to see the man fall from the roof in
+another minute.
+
+"Well, good night," cried Mme Boche. "I must not detain you from your
+work."
+
+Coupeau turned and took the iron Zidore held out to him. At the same
+moment Mme Boche saw Gervaise coming toward her with little Nana
+trotting at her side. She looked up to the roof to tell Coupeau, but
+Gervaise closed her lips with an energetic signal, and then as she
+reached the old concierge she said in a low voice that she was always
+in deadly terror that her husband would fall. She never dared look at
+him when he was in such places.
+
+"It is not very agreeable, I admit," answered Mme Boche. "My man is
+a tailor, and I am spared all this."
+
+"At first," continued Gervaise, "I had not a moment's peace. I saw
+him in my dreams on a litter, but now I have got accustomed to it
+somewhat."
+
+She looked up, keeping Nana behind her skirts, lest the child should
+call out and startle her father, who was at that moment on the extreme
+edge. She saw the soldering iron and the tiny flame that rose as he
+carefully passed it along the edges of the zinc. Gervaise, pale with
+suspense and fear, raised her hands mechanically with a gesture of
+supplication. Coupeau ascended the steep roof with a slow step, then
+glancing down, he beheld his wife.
+
+"You are watching me, are you?" he cried gaily. "Ah, Madame Boche, is
+she not a silly one? She was afraid to speak to me. Wait ten minutes,
+will you?"
+
+The two women stood on the sidewalk, having as much as they could do
+to restrain Nana, who insisted on fishing in the gutter.
+
+The old woman still stood at the window, looking up at the roof and
+waiting.
+
+"Just see her," said Mme Boche. "What is she looking at?"
+
+Coupeau was heard lustily singing; with the aid of a pair of compasses
+he had drawn some lines and now proceeded to cut a large fan; this he
+adroitly, with his tools, folded into the shape of a pointed mushroom.
+Zidore was again heating the irons. The sun was setting just behind
+the house, and the whole western sky was flushed with rose, fading
+to a soft violet, and against this sky the figures of the two men,
+immeasurably exaggerated, stood clearly out, as well as the strange
+form of the zinc which Coupeau was then manipulating.
+
+"Zidore! The irons!"
+
+But Zidore was not to be seen. His master, with an oath, shouted down
+the scuttle window which was open near by and finally discovered him
+two houses off. The boy was taking a walk, apparently, with his scanty
+blond hair blowing all about his head.
+
+"Do you think you are in the country?" cried Coupeau in a fury. "You
+are another Beranger, perhaps--composing verses! Will you have the
+kindness to give me my irons? Whoever heard the like? Give me my
+irons, I say!"
+
+The irons hissed as he applied them, and he called to Gervaise:
+
+"I am coming!"
+
+The chimney to which he had fitted this cap was in the center of the
+roof. Gervaise stood watching him, soothed by his calm self-possession.
+Nana clapped her little hands.
+
+"Papa! Papa!" she cried. "Look!"
+
+The father turned; his foot slipped; he rolled down the roof slowly,
+unable to catch at anything.
+
+"Good God!" he said in a choked voice, and he fell; his body turned
+over twice and crashed into the middle of the street with the dull
+thud of a bundle of wet linen.
+
+Gervaise stood still. A shriek was frozen on her lips. Mme Boche
+snatched Nana in her arms and hid her head that she might not see,
+and the little old woman opposite, who seemed to have waited for this
+scene in the drama, quietly closed her windows.
+
+Four men bore Coupeau to a druggist's at the corner, where he lay for
+an hour while a litter was sent for from the Hospital Lariboisière.
+He was breathing still, but that was all. Gervaise knelt at his side,
+hysterically sobbing. Every minute or two, in spite of the prohibition
+of the druggist, she touched him to see if he were still warm. When
+the litter arrived and they spoke of the hospital, she started up,
+saying violently:
+
+"No--no! Not to the hospital--to our own home."
+
+In vain did they tell her that the expenses would be very great if
+she nursed him at home.
+
+"No--no!" she said. "I will show them the way. He is my husband,
+is he not? And I will take care of him myself."
+
+And Coupeau was carried home, and as the litter was borne through the
+_Quartier_ the women crowded together and extolled Gervaise. She
+was a little lame, to be sure, but she was very energetic, and she
+would save her man.
+
+Mme Boche took Nana home and then went about among her friends to tell
+the story with interminable details.
+
+"I saw him fall," she said. "It was all because of the child; he was
+going to speak to her, when down he went. Good lord! I trust I may
+never see such another sight."
+
+For a week Coupeau's life hung on a thread. His family and his friends
+expected to see him die from one hour to another. The physician, an
+experienced physician whose every visit cost five francs, talked of
+a lesion, and that word was in itself very terrifying to all but
+Gervaise, who, pale from her vigils but calm and resolute, shrugged
+her shoulders and would not allow herself to be discouraged. Her man's
+leg was broken; that she knew very well, "but he need not die for
+that!" And she watched at his side night and day, forgetting her
+children and her home and everything but him.
+
+On the ninth day, when the physician told her he would recover,
+she dropped, half fainting, on a chair, and at night she slept for
+a couple of hours with her head on the foot of his bed.
+
+This accident to Coupeau brought all his family about him. His mother
+spent the nights there, but she slept in her chair quite comfortably.
+Mme Lerat came in every evening after work was over to make inquiries.
+
+The Lorilleuxs at first came three or four times each day and brought
+an armchair for Gervaise, but soon quarrels and discussions arose as
+to the proper way of nursing the invalid, and Mme Lorilleux lost her
+temper and declared that had Gervaise stayed at home and not gone to
+pester her husband when he was at work the accident would not have
+happened.
+
+When she saw Coupeau out of danger Gervaise allowed his family to
+approach him as they saw fit. His convalescence would be a matter of
+months. This again was a ground of indignation for Mme Lorilleux.
+
+"What nonsense it was," she said, "for Gervaise to take him home! Had
+he gone to the hospital he would have recovered as quickly again."
+
+And then she made a calculation of what these four months would cost:
+First, there was the time lost, then the physician, the medicines,
+the wines and finally the meat for beef tea. Yes, it would be a pretty
+sum, to be sure! If they got through it on their savings they would
+do well, but she believed that the end would be that they would find
+themselves head over heels in debt, and they need expect no assistance
+from his family, for none of them was rich enough to pay for sickness
+at home!
+
+One evening Mme Lorilleux was malicious enough to say:
+
+"And your shop, when do you take it? The concierge is waiting to know
+what you mean to do."
+
+Gervaise gasped. She had utterly forgotten the shop. She saw the
+delight of these people when they believed that this plan was given
+up, and from that day they never lost an occasion of twitting her on
+her dream that had toppled over like a house of cards, and she grew
+morbid and fancied they were pleased at the accident to their brother
+which had prevented the realization of their plans.
+
+She tried to laugh and to show them she did not grudge the money that
+had been expended in the restoration of her husband's health. She did
+not withdraw all her savings from the bank at once, for she had a
+vague hope that some miracle would intervene which would render the
+sacrifice unnecessary.
+
+Was it not a great comfort, she said to herself and to her enemies,
+for as such she had begun to regard the Lorilleuxs, that she had this
+money now to turn to in this emergency?
+
+Her neighbors next door had been very kind and thoughtful to Gervaise
+all through her trouble and the illness of her husband.
+
+Mme Goujet never went out without coming to inquire if there was
+anything she could do, any commission she could execute. She brought
+innumerable bowls of soup and, even when Gervaise was particularly
+busy, washed her dishes for her. Goujet filled her buckets every
+morning with fresh water, and this was an economy of at least two
+sous, and in the evening came to sit with Coupeau. He did not say
+much, but his companionship cheered and comforted the invalid. He
+was tender and compassionate and was thrilled by the sweetness of
+Gervaise's voice when she spoke to her husband. Never had he seen such
+a brave, good woman; he did not believe she sat in her chair fifteen
+minutes in the whole day. She was never tired, never out of temper,
+and the young man grew very fond of the poor woman as he watched her.
+
+His mother had found a wife for him. A girl whose trade was the same
+as her own, a lace mender, and as he did not wish to go contrary to
+her desires he consented that the marriage should take place in
+September.
+
+But when Gervaise spoke of his future he shook his head.
+
+"All women are not like you, Madame Coupeau," he said. "If they were
+I should like ten wives."
+
+At the end of two months Coupeau was on his feet again and could
+move--with difficulty, of course--as far as the window, where he sat
+with his leg on a chair. The poor fellow was sadly shaken by his
+accident. He was no philosopher, and he swore from morning until
+night. He said he knew every crack in the ceiling. When he was
+installed in his armchair it was little better. How long, he asked
+impatiently, was he expected to sit there swathed like a mummy? And
+he cursed his ill luck. His accident was a cursed shame. If his head
+had been disturbed by drink it would have been different, but he was
+always sober, and this was the result. He saw no sense in the whole
+thing!
+
+"My father," he said, "broke his neck. I don't say he deserved it,
+but I do say there was a reason for it. But I had not drunk a drop,
+and yet over I went, just because I spoke to my child! If there be
+a Father in heaven, as they say, who watches over us all, I must say
+He manages things strangely enough sometimes!"
+
+And as his strength returned his trade grew strangely distasteful to
+him. It was a miserable business, he said, roaming along gutters like
+a cat. In his opinion there should be a law which should compel every
+houseowner to tin his own roof. He wished he knew some other trade he
+could follow, something that was less dangerous.
+
+For two months more Coupeau walked with a crutch and after a while
+was able to get into the street and then to the outer boulevard, where
+he sat on a bench in the sun. His gaiety returned; he laughed again
+and enjoyed doing nothing. For the first time in his life he felt
+thoroughly lazy, and indolence seemed to have taken possession of his
+whole being. When he got rid of his crutches he sauntered about and
+watched the buildings which were in the process of construction in the
+vicinity, and he jested with the men and indulged himself in a general
+abuse of work. Of course he intended to begin again as soon as he
+was quite well, but at present the mere thought made him feel ill,
+he said.
+
+In the afternoons Coupeau often went to his sister's apartment;
+she expressed a great deal of compassion for him and showed every
+attention. When he was first married he had escaped from her
+influence, thanks to his affection for his wife and hers for him.
+Now he fell under her thumb again; they brought him back by declaring
+that he lived in mortal terror of his wife. But the Lorilleuxs were
+too wise to disparage her openly; on the contrary, they praised her
+extravagantly, and he told his wife that they adored her and begged
+her, in her turn, to be just to them.
+
+The first quarrel in their home arose on the subject of Etienne.
+Coupeau had been with his sister. He came in late and found the
+children fretting for their dinner. He cuffed Etienne's ears, bade him
+hold his tongue and scolded for an hour. He was sure he did not know
+why he let that boy stay in the house; he was none of his; until that
+day he had accepted the child as a matter of course.
+
+Three days after this he gave the boy a kick, and it was not long
+before the child, when he heard him coming, ran into the Goujets',
+where there was always a corner at the table for him.
+
+Gervaise had long since resumed her work. She no longer lifted the
+globe of her clock to take out her bankbook; her savings were all
+gone, and it was necessary to count the sous pretty closely, for there
+were four mouths to feed, and they were all dependent on the work of
+her two hands. When anyone found fault with Coupeau and blamed him
+she always took his part.
+
+"Think how much he has suffered," she said with tears in her eyes.
+"Think of the shock to his nerves! Who can wonder that he is a little
+sour? Wait awhile, though, until he is perfectly well, and you will
+see that his temper will be as sweet as it ever was."
+
+And if anyone ventured to observe that he seemed quite well and that
+he ought to go to work she would exclaim:
+
+"No indeed, not yet. It would never do." She did not want him down in
+his bed again. She knew what the doctor had said, and she every day
+begged him to take his own time. She even slipped a little silver,
+into his vest pocket. All this Coupeau accepted as a matter of course.
+He complained of all sorts of pains and aches to gain a little longer
+period of indolence and at the end of six months had begun to look
+upon himself as a confirmed invalid.
+
+He almost daily dropped into a wineshop with a friend; it was a place
+where he could chat a little, and where was the harm? Besides, whoever
+heard of a glass of wine killing a man? But he swore to himself that
+he would never touch anything but wine--not a drop of brandy should
+pass his lips. Wine was good for one--prolonged one's life, aided
+digestion--but brandy was a very different matter. Notwithstanding all
+these wise resolutions, it came to pass more than once that he came
+in, after visiting a dozen different cabarets, decidedly tipsy. On
+these occasions Gervaise locked her doors and declared she was ill,
+to prevent the Goujets from seeing her husband.
+
+The poor woman was growing very sad. Every night and morning she
+passed the shop for which she had so ardently longed. She made her
+calculations over and over again until her brain was dizzy. Two
+hundred and fifty francs for rent, one hundred and fifty for moving
+and the apparatus she needed, one hundred francs to keep things going
+until business began to come in. No, it could not be done under five
+hundred francs.
+
+She said nothing of this to anyone, deterred only by the fear of
+seeming to regret the money she had spent for her husband during his
+illness. She was pale and dispirited at the thought that she must work
+five years at least before she could save that much money.
+
+One evening Gervaise was alone. Goujet entered, took a chair in
+silence and looked at her as he smoked his pipe. He seemed to be
+revolving something in his mind. Suddenly he took his pipe from his
+mouth.
+
+"Madame Gervaise," he said, "will you allow me to lend you the money
+you require?"
+
+She was kneeling at a drawer, laying some towels in a neat pile. She
+started up, red with surprise. He had seen her standing that very
+morning for a good ten minutes, looking at the shop, so absorbed that
+she had not seen him pass.
+
+She refused his offer, however. No, she could never borrow money when
+she did not know how she could return it, and when he insisted she
+replied:
+
+"But your marriage? This is the money you have saved for that."
+
+"Don't worry on that account," he said with a heightened color. "I
+shall not marry. It was an idea of my mother's, and I prefer to lend
+you the money."
+
+They looked away from each other. Their friendship had a certain
+element of tenderness which each silently recognized.
+
+Gervaise accepted finally and went with Goujet to see his mother, whom
+he had informed of his intentions. They found her somewhat sad, with
+her serene, pale face bent over her work. She did not wish to thwart
+her son, but she no longer approved of the plan, and she told Gervaise
+why. With kind frankness she pointed out to her that Coupeau had
+fallen into evil habits and was living on her labors and would in
+all probability continue to do so. The truth was that Mme Goujet
+had not forgiven Coupeau for refusing to read during all his long
+convalescence; this and many other things had alienated her and her
+son from him, but they had in no degree lost their interest in
+Gervaise.
+
+Finally it was agreed she should have five hundred francs and should
+return the money by paying each month twenty francs on account.
+
+"Well, well!" cried Coupeau as he heard of this financial transaction.
+"We are in luck. There is no danger with us, to be sure, but if he
+were dealing with knaves he might never see hide or hair of his cash
+again!"
+
+The next day the shop was taken, and Gervaise ran about with such
+a light heart that there was a rumor that she had been cured of her
+lameness by an operation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+AMBITIOUS DREAMS
+
+
+The Boche couple, on the first of April, moved also and took the loge
+of the great house in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. Things had turned out
+very nicely for Gervaise who, having always got on very comfortably
+with the concierge in the house in Rue Neuve, dreaded lest she should
+fall into the power of some tyrant who would quarrel over every drop
+of water that was spilled and a thousand other trifles like that. But
+with Mme Boche all would go smoothly.
+
+The day the lease was to be signed and Gervaise stood in her new home
+her heart swelled with joy. She was finally to live in that house like
+a small town, with its intersecting corridors instead of streets.
+
+She felt a strange timidity--a dread of failure--when she found
+herself face to face with her enterprise. The struggle for bread was a
+terrible and an increasing one, and it seemed to her for a moment that
+she had been guilty of a wild, foolhardy act, like throwing herself
+into the jaws of a machine, for the planes in the cabinetmaker's shop
+and the hammers in the locksmith's were dimly grasped by her as a part
+of a great whole.
+
+The water that ran past the door that day from the dyer's was pale
+green. She smiled as she stepped over it, accepting this color as a
+happy augury. She, with her husband, entered the loge, where Mme Boche
+and the owner of the building, M. Marescot, were talking on business.
+
+Gervaise, with a thrill of pain, heard Boche advise the landlord to
+turn out the dressmaker on the third floor who was behindhand with her
+rent. She wondered if she would ever be turned out and then wondered
+again at the attitude assumed by these Boche people, who did not seem
+to have ever seen her before. They had eyes and ears only for the
+landlord, who shook hands with his new tenants but, when they spoke
+of repairs, professed to be in such haste that morning that it would
+be necessary to postpone the discussion. They reminded him of certain
+verbal promises he had made, and finally he consented to examine the
+premises.
+
+The shop stood with its four bare walls and blackened ceiling. The
+tenant who had been there had taken away his own counters and cases.
+A furious discussion took place. M. Marescot said it was for them
+to embellish the shop.
+
+"That may be," said Gervaise gently, "but surely you cannot call
+putting on a fresh paper, instead of this that hangs in strips, an
+embellishment. Whitening the curbing, too, comes under, the head of
+necessary repairs." She only required these two things.
+
+Finally Marescot, with a desperate air, plunged his hands deep in his
+pockets, shrugged his shoulders and gave his consent to the repairs on
+the ceiling and to the paper, on condition that she would pay for half
+the paper, and then he hurried away.
+
+When he had departed Boche clapped Coupeau on the shoulder. "You may
+thank me for that!" he cried and then went on to say that he was the
+real master of the house, that he settled the whole business of the
+establishment, and it was a nod and look from him that had influenced
+M. Marescot. That evening Gervaise, considering themselves in debt to
+Boche, sent him some wine.
+
+In four days the shop should have been ready for them, but the repairs
+hung on for three weeks. At first they intended simply to have the
+paint scrubbed, but it was so shabby and worn that Gervaise repainted
+at her own expense. Coupeau went every morning, not to work, but to
+inspect operations, and Boche dropped the vest or pantaloons on which
+he was working and gave the benefit of his advice, and the two men
+spent the whole day smoking and spitting and arguing over each stroke
+of the brush. Some days the painters did not appear at all; on others
+they came and walked off in an hour's time, not to return again.
+
+Poor Gervaise wrung her hands in despair. But finally, after two days
+of energetic labor, the whole thing was done, and the men walked off
+with their ladders, singing lustily.
+
+Then came the moving, and finally Gervaise called herself settled in
+her new home and was pleased as a child. As she came up the street
+she could see her sign afar off:
+
+  CLEAR STARCHER
+  LACES AND EMBROIDERIES
+  DONE UP WITH ESPECIAL CARE
+
+The two first words were painted in large yellow letters on a pale blue
+ground.
+
+In the recessed window shut in at the back by muslin curtains lay
+men's shirts, delicate handkerchiefs and cuffs; all these were on
+blue paper, and Gervaise was charmed. When she entered the door all
+was blue there; the paper represented a golden trellis and blue
+morning-glories. In the center was a huge table draped with
+blue-bordered cretonne to hide the trestles.
+
+Gervaise seated herself and looked round, happy in the cleanliness of
+all about her. Her first glance, however, was directed to her stove,
+a sort of furnace whereon ten irons could be heated at once. It was a
+source of constant anxiety lest her little apprentice should fill it
+too full of coal and so injure it.
+
+Behind the shop was her bedroom and her kitchen, from which a door
+opened into the court. Nana's bed stood in a little room at the right,
+and Etienne was compelled to share his with the baskets of soiled
+clothes. It was all very well, except that the place was very damp
+and that it was dark by three o'clock in the afternoon in winter.
+
+The new shop created a great excitement in the neighborhood. Some
+people declared that the Coupeaus were on the road to ruin; they
+had, in fact, spent the whole five hundred francs and were penniless,
+contrary to their intentions. The morning that Gervaise first took
+down her shutters she had only six francs in the world, but she was
+not troubled, and at the end of a week she told her husband after two
+hours of abstruse calculations that they had taken in enough to cover
+their expenses.
+
+The Lorilleuxs were in a state of rage, and one morning when the
+apprentice was emptying, on the sly, a bowl of starch which she had
+burned in making, just as Mme Lorilleux was passing, she rushed in and
+accused her sister-in-law of insulting her. After this all friendly
+relations were at an end.
+
+"It all looks very strange to me," sniffed Mme Lorilleux. "I can't
+tell where the money comes from, but I have my suspicions." And she
+went on to intimate that Gervaise and Goujet were altogether too
+intimate. This was the groundwork of many fables; she said Wooden Legs
+was so mild and sweet that she had deceived her to the extent that
+she had consented to become Nana's godmother, which had been no small
+expense, but now things were very different. If Gervaise were dying
+and asked her for a glass of water she would not give it. She could
+not stand such people. As to Nana, it was different; they would
+always receive her. The child, of course, was not responsible for her
+mother's crimes. Coupeau should take a more decided stand and not put
+up with his wife's vile conduct.
+
+Boche and his wife sat in judgment on the quarrel and gave as their
+opinion that the Lorilleuxs were much to blame. They were good
+tenants, of course. They paid regularly. "But," added Mme Boche, "I
+never could abide jealousy. They are mean people and were never known
+to offer a glass of wine to a friend."
+
+Mother Coupeau visited her son and daughter successive days, listened
+to the tales of each and said never a word in reply.
+
+Gervaise lived a busy life and took no notice of all this foolish
+gossip and strife. She greeted her friends with a smile from the door
+of her shop, where she went for a breath of fresh air. All the people
+in the neighborhood liked her and would have called her a great beauty
+but for her lameness. She was twenty-eight and had grown plump. She
+moved more slowly, and when she took a chair to wait for her irons
+to heat she rose with reluctance. She was growing fond of good
+living--that she herself admitted--but she did not regard it as a
+fault. She worked hard and had a right to good food. Why should she
+live on potato parings? Sometimes she worked all night when she had
+a great deal of work on hand.
+
+She did the washing for the whole house and for some Parisian ladies
+and had several apprentices, besides two laundresses. She was making
+money hand over fist, and her good luck would have turned a wiser head
+than her own. But hers was not turned; she was gentle and sweet and
+hated no one except her sister-in-law. She judged everybody kindly,
+particularly after she had eaten a good breakfast. When people called
+her good she laughed. Why should she not be good? She had seen all her
+dreams realized. She remembered what she once said--that she wanted to
+work hard, have plenty to eat, a home to herself, where she could
+bring up her children, not be beaten and die in her bed! As to dying
+in her bed, she added she wanted that still, but she would put it off
+as long as possible, "if you please!" It was to Coupeau himself that
+Gervaise was especially sweet. Never a cross or an impatient word had
+he heard from her lips, and no one had ever known her complain of him
+behind his back. He had finally resumed his trade, and as the shop
+where he worked was at the other end of Paris, she gave him every
+morning forty sous for his breakfast, his wine and tobacco. Two days
+out of six, however, Coupeau would meet a friend, drink up his forty
+sous and return to breakfast. Once, indeed, he sent a note, saying
+that his account at the cabaret exceeded his forty sous. He was in
+pledge, as it were; would his wife send the money? She laughed and
+shrugged her shoulders. Where was the harm in her husband's amusing
+himself a little? A woman must give a man a long rope if she wished
+to live in peace and comfort. It was not far from words to blows--she
+knew that very well.
+
+The hot weather had come. One afternoon in June the ten irons were
+heating on the stove; the door was open into the street, but not a
+breath of air came in.
+
+"What a melting day!" said Gervaise, who was stooping over a great
+bowl of starch. She had rolled up her sleeves and taken off her sack
+and stood in her chemise and white skirt; the soft hair in her neck
+was curling on her white throat. She dipped each cuff in the starch,
+the fronts of the shirts and the whole of the skirts. Then she rolled
+up the pieces tightly and placed them neatly in a square basket after
+having sprinkled with clear water all those portions which were not
+starched.
+
+"This basket is for you, Madame Putois," she said, "and you will have
+to hurry, for they dry so fast in this weather."
+
+Mine Putois was a thin little woman who looked cool and comfortable
+in her tightly buttoned dress. She had not taken her cap off but stood
+at the table, moving her irons to and fro with the regularity of an
+automaton. Suddenly she exclaimed:
+
+"Put on your sack, Clemence; there are three men looking in, and I
+don't like such things."
+
+Clemence grumbled and growled. What did she care what she liked? She
+could not and would not roast to suit anybody.
+
+"Clemence, put on your sack," said Gervaise. "Madame Putois is
+right--it is not proper."
+
+Clemence muttered but obeyed and consoled herself by giving the
+apprentice, who was ironing hose and towels by her side, a little
+push. Gervaise had a cap belonging to Mme Boche in her hand and was
+ironing the crown with a round ball, when a tall, bony woman came in.
+She was a laundress.
+
+"You have come too soon, Madame Bijard!" cried Gervaise. "I said
+tonight. It is very inconvenient for me to attend to you at this
+hour." At the same time, however, Gervaise amiably laid down her work
+and went for the dirty clothes, which she piled up in the back shop.
+It took the two women nearly an hour to sort them and mark them with
+a stitch of colored cotton.
+
+At this moment Coupeau entered.
+
+"By Jove!" he said. "The sun beats down on one's head like a hammer."
+He caught at the table to sustain himself; he had been drinking; a
+spider web had caught in his dark hair, where many a white thread
+was apparent. His under jaw dropped a little, and his smile was good
+natured but silly.
+
+Gervaise asked her husband if he had seen the Lorilleuxs in rather
+a severe tone; when he said no she smiled at him without a word of
+reproach.
+
+"You had best go and lie down," she said pleasantly. "We are very
+busy, and you are in our way. Did I say thirty-two handkerchiefs,
+Madame Bijard? Here are two more; that makes thirty-four."
+
+But Coupeau was not sleepy, and he preferred to remain where he was.
+Gervaise called Clemence and bade her to count the linen while she
+made out the list. She glanced at each piece as she wrote. She knew
+many of them by the color. That pillow slip belonged to Mme Boche
+because it was stained with the pomade she always used, and so on
+through the whole. Gervaise was seated with these piles of soiled
+linen about her. Augustine, whose great delight was to fill up the
+stove, had done so now, and it was red hot. Coupeau leaned toward
+Gervaise.
+
+"Kiss me," he said. "You are a good woman."
+
+As he spoke he gave a sudden lurch and fell among the skirts.
+
+"Do take care," said Gervaise impatiently. "You will get them all
+mixed again." And she gave him a little push with her foot, whereat
+all the other women cried out.
+
+"He is not like most men," said Mme Putois; "they generally wish to
+beat you when they come in like this."
+
+Gervaise already regretted her momentary vexation and assisted her
+husband to his feet and then turned her cheek to him with a smile,
+but he put his arm round her and kissed her neck. She pushed him
+aside with a laugh.
+
+"You ought to be ashamed!" she said but yielded to his embrace, and
+the long kiss they exchanged before these people, amid the sickening
+odor of the soiled linen and the alcoholic fumes of his breath, was
+the first downward step in the slow descent of their degradation.
+
+Mme Bijard tied up the linen and staggered off under their weight
+while Gervaise turned back to finish her cap. Alas! The stove and the
+irons were alike red hot; she must wait a quarter of an hour before
+she could touch the irons, and Gervaise covered the fire with a couple
+of shovelfuls of cinders. She then hung a sheet before the window to
+keep out the sun. Coupeau took a place in the corner, refusing to
+budge an inch, and his wife and all her assistants went to work on
+each side of the square table. Each woman had at her right a flat
+brick on which to set her iron. In the center of the table a dish of
+water with a rag and a brush in it and also a bunch of tall lilies
+in a broken jar.
+
+Mme Putois had attacked the basket of linen prepared by Gervaise, and
+Augustine was ironing her towels, with her nose in the air, deeply
+interested in a fly that was buzzing about. As to Clemence, she was
+polishing off her thirty-fifth shirt; as she boasted of this great
+feat Coupeau staggered toward her.
+
+"Madame," she called, "please keep him away; he will bother me, and
+I shall scorch my shirt."
+
+"Let her be," said Gervaise without any especial energy. "We are in
+a great hurry today!"
+
+Well, that was not his fault; he did not mean to touch the girl;
+he only wanted to see what she was about.
+
+"Really," said his wife, looking up from her fluting iron, "I think
+you had best go to bed."
+
+He began to talk again.
+
+"You need not make such a fuss, Clemence; it is only because these
+women are here, and--"
+
+But he could say no more; Gervaise quietly laid one hand on his mouth
+and the other on his shoulder and pushed him toward his room. He
+struggled a little and with a silly laugh asked if Clemence was not
+coming too.
+
+Gervaise undressed her husband and tucked him up in bed as if he had
+been a child and then returned to her fluting irons in time to still
+a grand dispute that was going on about an iron that had not been
+properly cleaned.
+
+In the profound silence that followed her appearance she could hear
+her husband's thick voice:
+
+"What a silly wife I've got! The idea of putting me to bed in broad
+daylight!"
+
+Suddenly he began to snore, and Gervaise uttered a sigh of relief.
+She used her fluting iron for a minute and then said quietly:
+
+"There is no need of being offended by anything a man does when he
+is in this state. He is not an accountable being. He did not intend
+to insult you. Clemence, you know what a tipsy man is--he respects
+neither father nor mother."
+
+She uttered these words in an indifferent, matter-of-fact way, not in
+the least disturbed that he had forgotten the respect due to her and
+to her roof and really seeing no harm in his conduct.
+
+The work now went steadily on, and Gervaise calculated they would
+be finished by eleven o'clock. The heat was intense; the smell of
+charcoal deadened the air, while the branch of white lilies slowly
+faded and filled the room with their sweetness.
+
+The day after all this Coupeau had a frightful headache and did not
+rise until late, too late to go to his work. About noon he began to
+feel better, and toward evening was quite himself. His wife gave him
+some silver and told him to go out and take the air, which meant with
+him taking some wine.
+
+One glass washed down another, but he came home as gay as a lark and
+quite disgusted with the men he had seen who were drinking themselves
+to death.
+
+"Where is your lover?" he said to his wife as he entered the shop.
+This was his favorite joke. "I never see him nowadays and must hunt
+him up."
+
+He meant Goujet, who came but rarely, lest the gossips in the
+neighborhood should take it upon themselves to gabble. Once in about
+ten days he made his appearance in the evening and installed himself
+in a corner in the back shop with his pipe. He rarely spoke but
+laughed at all Gervaise said.
+
+On Saturday evenings the establishment was kept open half the night. A
+lamp hung from the ceiling with the light thrown down by a shade. The
+shutters were put up at the usual time, but as the nights were very
+warm the door was left open, and as the hours wore on the women pulled
+their jackets open a little more at the throat, and he sat in his
+corner and looked on as if he were at a theater.
+
+The silence of the street was broken by a passing carriage. Two
+o'clock struck--no longer a sound from outside. At half-past two a
+man hurried past the door, carrying with him a vision of flying arms,
+piles of white linen and a glow of yellow light.
+
+Goujet, wishing to save Etienne from Coupeau's rough treatment, had
+taken him to the place where he was employed to blow the bellows, with
+the prospect of becoming an apprentice as soon as he was old enough,
+and Etienne thus became another tie between the clearstarcher and the
+blacksmith.
+
+All their little world laughed and told Gervaise that her friend
+worshiped the very ground she trod upon. She colored and looked like
+a girl of sixteen.
+
+"Dear boy," she said to herself, "I know he loves me, but never has
+he said or will he say a word of the kind to me!" And she was proud
+of being loved in this way. When she was disturbed about anything her
+first thought was to go to him. When by chance they were left alone
+together they were never disturbed by wondering if their friendship
+verged on love. There was no harm in such affection.
+
+Nana was now six years old and a most troublesome little sprite. Her
+mother took her every morning to a school in the Rue Polonceau, to
+a certain Mlle Josse. Here she did all manner of mischief. She put
+ashes into the teacher's snuffbox, pinned the skirts of her companions
+together. Twice the young lady was sent home in disgrace and then
+taken back again for the sake of the six francs each month. As soon as
+school hours were over Nana revenged herself for the hours of enforced
+quiet she had passed by making the most frightful din in the courtyard
+and the shop.
+
+She found able allies in Pauline and Victor Boche. The whole great
+house resounded with the most extraordinary noises--the thumps of
+children falling downstairs, little feet tearing up one staircase
+and down another and bursting out on the sidewalk like a band of
+pilfering, impudent sparrows.
+
+Mme Gaudron alone had nine--dirty, unwashed and unkempt, their
+stockings hanging over their shoes and the slits in their garments
+showing the white skin beneath. Another woman on the fifth floor had
+seven, and they came out in twos and threes from all the rooms. Nana
+reigned over this band, among which there were some half grown and
+others mere infants. Her prime ministers were Pauline and Victor;
+to them she delegated a little of her authority while she played
+mamma, undressed the youngest only to dress them again, cuffed them
+and punished them at her own sweet will and with the most fantastic
+disposition. The band pranced and waded through the gutter that ran
+from the dyehouse and emerged with blue or green legs. Nana decorated
+herself and the others with shavings from the cabinetmaker's, which
+they stole from under the very noses of the workmen.
+
+The courtyard belonged to all of these children, apparently, and
+resounded with the clatter of their heels. Sometimes this courtyard,
+however, was not enough for them, and they spread in every direction
+to the infinite disgust of Mme Boche, who grumbled all in vain. Boche
+declared that the children of the poor were as plentiful as mushrooms
+on a dung heap, and his wife threatened them with her broom.
+
+One day there was a terrible scene. Nana had invented a beautiful
+game. She had stolen a wooden shoe belonging to Mme Boche; she bored
+a hole in it and put in a string, by which she could draw it like a
+cart. Victor filled it with apple parings, and they started forth in
+a procession, Nana drawing the shoe in front, followed by the whole
+flock, little and big, an imp about the height of a cigar box at the
+end. They all sang a melancholy ditty full of "ahs" and "ohs." Nana
+declared this to be always the custom at funerals.
+
+"What on earth are they doing now?" murmured Mme Boche suspiciously,
+and then she came to the door and peered out.
+
+"Good heavens!" she cried. "It is my shoe they have got."
+
+She slapped Nana, cuffed Pauline and shook Victor. Gervaise was
+filling a bucket at the fountain, and when she saw Nana with her nose
+bleeding she rushed toward the concierge and asked how she dared
+strike her child.
+
+The concierge replied that anyone who had a child like that had
+best keep her under lock and key. The end of this was, of course,
+a complete break between the old friends.
+
+But, in fact, the quarrel had been growing for a month. Gervaise,
+generous by nature and knowing the tastes of the Boche people, was
+in the habit of making them constant presents--oranges, a little
+hot soup, a cake or something of the kind. One evening, knowing that
+the concierge would sell her soul for a good salad, she took her
+the remains of a dish of beets and chicory. The next day she was
+dumfounded at hearing from Mlle Remanjon how Mme Boche had thrown the
+salad away, saying that she was not yet reduced to eating the leavings
+of other people! From that day forth Gervaise sent her nothing more.
+The Boches had learned to look on her little offerings as their right,
+and they now felt themselves to be robbed by the Coupeaus.
+
+It was not long before Gervaise realized she had made a mistake, for
+when she was one day late with her October rent Mme Boche complained
+to the proprietor, who came blustering to her shop with his hat on.
+Of course, too, the Lorilleuxs extended the right hand of fellowship
+at once to the Boche people.
+
+There came a day, however, when Gervaise found it necessary to call on
+the Lorilleuxs. It was on Mamma Coupeau's account, who was sixty-seven
+years old, nearly blind and helpless. They must all unite in doing
+something for her now. Gervaise thought it a burning shame that a
+woman of her age, with three well-to-do children, should be allowed
+for a moment to regard herself as friendless and forsaken. And as her
+husband refused to speak to his sister, Gervaise said she would.
+
+She entered the room like a whirlwind, without knocking. Everything
+was just as it was on that night when she had been received by them
+in a fashion which she had never forgotten or forgiven. "I have come,"
+cried Gervaise, "and I dare say you wish to know why, particularly
+as we are at daggers drawn. Well then, I have come on Mamma Coupeau's
+account. I have come to ask if we are to allow her to beg her bread
+from door to door----"
+
+"Indeed!" said Mme Lorilleux with a sneer, and she turned away.
+
+But Lorilleux lifted his pale face.
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked, and as he had understood perfectly,
+he went on:
+
+"What is this cry of poverty about? The old lady ate her dinner with
+us yesterday. We do all we can for her, I am sure. We have not the
+mines of Peru within our reach, but if she thinks she is to run to
+and fro between our houses she is much mistaken. I, for one, have no
+liking for spies." He then added as he took up his microscope, "When
+the rest of you agree to give five francs per month toward her support
+we will do the same." Gervaise was calmer now; these people always
+chilled the very marrow in her bones, and she went on to explain her
+views. Five francs were not enough for each of the old lady's children
+to pay. She could not live on fifteen francs per month.
+
+"And why not?" cried Lorilleux. "She ought to do so. She can see well
+enough to find the best bits in a dish before her, and she can do
+something toward her own maintenance." If he had the means to indulge
+such laziness he should not consider it his duty to do so, he added.
+
+Then Gervaise grew angry again. She looked at her sister-in-law and
+saw her face set in vindictive firmness.
+
+"Keep your money," she cried. "I will take care of your mother. I
+found a starving cat in the street the other night and took it in. I
+can take in your mother too. She shall want for nothing. Good heavens,
+what people!"
+
+Mme Lorilleux snatched up a saucepan.
+
+"Clear out," she said hoarsely. "I will never give one sou--no, not
+one sou--toward her keep. I understand you! You will make my mother
+work for you like a slave and put my five francs in your pocket! Not
+if I know it, madame! And if she goes to live under your roof I will
+never see her again. Be off with you, I say!"
+
+"What a monster!" cried Gervaise as she shut the door with a bang. On
+the very next day Mme Coupeau came to her. A large bed was put in the
+room where Nana slept. The moving did not take long, for the old lady
+had only this bed, a wardrobe, table and two chairs. The table was
+sold and the chairs new-seated, and the old lady the evening of her
+arrival washed the dishes and swept up the room, glad to make herself
+useful. Mme Lerat had amused herself by quarreling with her sister,
+to whom she had expressed her admiration of the generosity evinced
+by Gervaise, and when she saw that Mme Lorilleux was intensely
+exasperated she declared she had never seen such eyes in anybody's
+head as those of the clearstarcher. She really believed one might
+light paper at them. This declaration naturally led to bitter words,
+and the sisters parted, swearing they would never see each other
+again, and since then Mme Lerat had spent most of her evenings at
+her brother's.
+
+Three years passed away. There were reconciliations and new quarrels.
+Gervaise continued to be liked by her neighbors; she paid her bills
+regularly and was a good customer. When she went out she received
+cordial greetings on all sides, and she was more fond of going out in
+these days than of yore. She liked to stand at the corners and chat.
+She liked to loiter with her arms full of bundles at a neighbor's
+window and hear a little gossip.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+GOUJET AT HIS FORGE
+
+
+One autumnal afternoon Gervaise, who had been to carry a basket of
+clothes home to a customer who lived a good way off, found herself in
+La Rue des Poissonniers just as it was growing dark. It had rained in
+the morning, and the air was close and warm. She was tired with her
+walk and felt a great desire for something good to eat. Just then she
+lifted her eyes and, seeing the name of the street, she took it into
+her head that she would call on Goujet at his forge. But she would ask
+for Etienne, she said to herself. She did not know the number, but she
+could find it, she thought. She wandered along and stood bewildered,
+looking toward Montmartre; all at once she heard the measured click of
+hammers and concluded that she had stumbled on the place at last. She
+did not know where the entrance to the building was, but she caught a
+gleam of a red light in the distance; she walked toward it and was met
+by a workman.
+
+"Is it here, sir," she said timidly, "that my child--a little boy,
+that is to say--works? A little boy by the name of Etienne?"
+
+"Etienne! Etienne!" repeated the man, swaying from side to side. The
+wind brought from him to her an intolerable smell of brandy, which
+caused Gervaise to draw back and say timidly:
+
+"Is it here that Monsieur Goujet works?"
+
+"Ah, Goujet, yes. If it is Goujet you wish to see go to the left."
+
+Gervaise obeyed his instructions and found herself in a large room
+with the forge at the farther end. She spoke to the first man she saw,
+when suddenly the whole room was one blaze of light. The bellows had
+sent up leaping flames which lit every crevice and corner of the dusty
+old building, and Gervaise recognized Goujet before the forge with two
+other men. She went toward him.
+
+"Madame Gervaise!" he exclaimed in surprise, his face radiant with
+joy, and then seeing his companions laugh and wink, he pushed Etienne
+toward his mother. "You came to see your boy," he said; "he does his
+duty like a hero.
+
+"I am glad of it," she answered, "but what an awful place this is to
+get at!"
+
+And she described her journey, as she called it, and then asked why
+no one seemed to know Etienne there.
+
+"Because," said the blacksmith, "he is called Zou Zou here, as his
+hair is cut short as a Zouave's."
+
+This visit paid by Gervaise to the forge was only the first of many
+others. She often went on Saturdays when she carried the clean linen
+to Mme Goujet, who still resided in the same house as before. The
+first year Gervaise had paid them twenty francs each month, or rather
+the difference between the amount of their washing, seven or eight
+francs, and the twenty which she agreed upon. In this way she had paid
+half the money she had borrowed, when one quarter day, not knowing
+to whom to turn, as she had not been able to collect her bills
+punctually, she ran to the Goujets' and borrowed the amount of her
+rent from them. Twice since she had asked a similar favor, so that the
+amount of her indebtedness now stood at four hundred and twenty-five
+francs.
+
+Now she no longer paid any cash but did their washing. It was not that
+she worked less hard or that her business was falling off. Quite the
+contrary; but money had a way of melting away in her hands, and she
+was content nowadays if she could only make both ends meet. What was
+the use of fussing, she thought? If she could manage to live that was
+all that was necessary. She was growing quite stout withal.
+
+Mme Goujet was always kind to Gervaise, not because of any fear of
+losing her money, but because she really loved her and was afraid of
+her going wrong in some way.
+
+The Saturday after the first visit paid by Gervaise to the forge was
+also the first of the month. When she reached Mme Goujet's her basket
+was so heavy that she panted for two good minutes before she could
+speak. Every one knows how heavy shirts and such things are.
+
+"Have you brought everything?" asked Mme Goujet, who was very exacting
+on this point. She insisted on every piece being returned each week.
+Another thing she exacted was that the clothes should be brought back
+always on the same day and hour.
+
+"Everything is here," answered Gervaise with a smile. "You know I
+never leave anything behind."
+
+"That is true," replied the elder woman. "You have many faults, my
+dear, but not that one yet."
+
+And while the laundress emptied her basket, laying the linen on
+the bed, Mme Goujet paid her many compliments. She never burned her
+clothes or ironed off the buttons or tore them, but she did use a
+trifle too much bluing and made her shirts too stiff.
+
+"Feel," she said; "it is like pasteboard. My son never complains,
+but I know he does not like them so."
+
+"And they shall not be so again," said Gervaise. "No one ever touches
+any of your things but myself, and I would do them over ten times
+rather than see you dissatisfied."
+
+She colored as she spoke.
+
+"I have no intention of disparaging your work," answered Mme Goujet.
+"I never saw anyone who did up laces and embroideries as you do, and
+the fluting is simply perfect; the only trouble is a little too much
+starch, my dear. Goujet does not care to look like a fine gentleman."
+
+She took up her book and drew a pen through the pieces as she spoke.
+Everything was there. She brought out the bundle of soiled clothes.
+Gervaise put them in her basket and hesitated.
+
+"Madame Goujet," she said at last, "if you do not mind I should like
+to have the money for this week's wash."
+
+The account this month was larger than usual, ten francs and over.
+Mme Goujet looked at her gravely.
+
+"My child," she said slowly, "it shall be as you wish. I do not refuse
+to give you the money if you desire it; only this is not the way to
+get out of debt. I say this with no unkindness, you understand. Only
+you must take care."
+
+Gervaise, with downcast eyes, received the lesson meekly. She needed
+the ten francs to complete the amount due the coal merchant, she said.
+
+But her friend heard this with a stern countenance and told her
+she should reduce her expenses, but she did not add that she, too,
+intended to do the same and that in future she should do her washing
+herself, as she had formerly done, if she were to be out of pocket
+thus.
+
+When Gervaise was on the staircase her heart was light, for she cared
+little for the reproof now that she had the ten francs in her hand;
+she was becoming accustomed to paying one debt by contracting another.
+
+Midway on the stairs she met a tall woman coming up with a fresh
+mackerel in her hand, and behold! it was Virginie, the girl whom she
+had whipped in the lavatory. The two looked each other full in the
+face. Gervaise instinctively closed her eyes, for she thought the girl
+would slap her in the face with the mackerel. But, no; Virginie gave a
+constrained smile. Then the laundress, whose huge basket filled up the
+stairway and who did not choose to be outdone in politeness, said:
+
+"I beg your pardon--"
+
+"Pray don't apologize," answered Virginie in a stately fashion.
+
+And they stood and talked for a few minutes with not the smallest
+allusion, however, to the past.
+
+Virginie, then about twenty-nine, was really a magnificent-looking
+woman, head well set on her shoulders and a long, oval face crowned by
+bands of glossy black hair. She told her history in a few brief words.
+She was married. Had married the previous spring a cabinetmaker who
+had given up his trade and was hoping to obtain a position on the
+police force. She had just been out to buy this mackerel for him.
+
+"He adores them," she said, "and we women spoil our husbands, I think.
+But come up. We are standing in a draft here."
+
+When Gervaise had, in her turn, told her story and added that Virginie
+was living in the very rooms where she had lived and where her child
+was born, Virginie became still more urgent that she should go up. "It
+is always pleasant to see a place where one has been happy," she said.
+She herself had been living on the other side of the water but had got
+tired of it and had moved into these rooms only two weeks ago. She was
+not settled yet. Her name was Mme Poisson.
+
+"And mine," said Gervaise, "is Coupeau."
+
+Gervaise was a little suspicious of all this courtesy. Might not some
+terrible revenge be hidden under it all? And she determined to be well
+on her guard. But as Virginie was so polite just now she must be
+polite in her turn.
+
+Poisson, the husband, was a man of thirty-five with a mustache and
+imperial; he was seated at a table near the window, making little
+boxes. His only tools were a penknife, a tiny saw and a gluepot; he
+was executing the most wonderful and delicate carving, however. He
+never sold his work but made presents of it to his friends. It amused
+him while he was awaiting his appointment.
+
+Poisson rose and bowed politely to Gervaise, whom his wife called an
+old friend. But he did not speak, his conversational powers not being
+his strong point. He cast a plaintive glance at the mackerel, however,
+from time to time. Gervaise looked around the room and described her
+furniture and where it had stood. How strange it was, after losing
+sight of each other so long, that they should occupy the same
+apartment! Virginie entered into new details. He had a small
+inheritance from his aunt, and she herself sewed a little, made a
+dress now and then. At the end of a half-hour Gervaise rose to depart;
+Virginie went to the head of the stairs with her, and there both
+hesitated. Gervaise fancied that Virginie wished to say something
+about Lantier and Adele, but they separated without touching on these
+disagreeable topics.
+
+This was the beginning of a great friendship. In another week Virginie
+could not pass the shop without going in, and sometimes she remained
+for two or three hours. At first Gervaise was very uncomfortable;
+she thought every time Virginie opened her lips that she would hear
+Lantier's name. Lantier was in her mind all the time she was with Mme
+Poisson. It was a stupid thing to do, after all, for what on earth
+did she care what had become of Lantier or of Adele? But she was,
+nonetheless, curious to know something about them.
+
+Winter had come, the fourth winter that the Coupeaus had spent in La
+Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. This year December and January were especially
+severe, and after New Year's the snow lay three weeks in the street
+without melting. There was plenty of work for Gervaise, and her shop
+was delightfully warm and singularly quiet, for the carriages made
+no noise in the snow-covered streets. The laughs and shouts of the
+children were almost the only sounds; they had made a long slide and
+enjoyed themselves hugely.
+
+Gervaise took especial pleasure in her coffee at noon. Her apprentices
+had no reason to complain, for it was hot and strong and unadulterated
+by chicory. On the morning of Twelfth-day the clock had struck twelve
+and then half past, and the coffee was not ready. Gervaise was ironing
+some muslin curtains. Clemence, with a frightful cold, was, as usual,
+at work on a man's shirt. Mme Putois was ironing a skirt on a board,
+with a cloth laid on the floor to prevent the skirt from being soiled.
+Mamma Coupeau brought in the coffee, and as each one of the women took
+a cup with a sigh of enjoyment the street door opened and Virginie
+came in with a rush of cold air.
+
+"Heavens!" she cried. "It is awful! My ears are cut off!"
+
+"You have come just in time for a cup of hot coffee," said Gervaise
+cordially.
+
+"And I shall be only too glad to have it!" answered Virginie with a
+shiver. She had been waiting at the grocer's, she said, until she was
+chilled through and through. The heat of that room was delicious, and
+then she stirred her coffee and said she liked the damp, sweet smell
+of the freshly ironed linen. She and Mamma Coupeau were the only ones
+who had chairs; the others sat on wooden footstools, so low that they
+seemed to be on the floor. Virginie suddenly stooped down to her
+hostess and said with a smile:
+
+"Do you remember that day at the lavatory?"
+
+Gervaise colored; she could not answer. This was just what she had
+been dreading. In a moment she felt sure she would hear Lantier's
+name. She knew it was coming. Virginie drew nearer to her. The
+apprentices lingered over their coffee and told each other as they
+looked stupidly into the street what they would do if they had an
+income of ten thousand francs. Virginie changed her seat and took
+a footstool by the side of Gervaise, who felt weak and cowardly and
+helpless to change the conversation or to stave off what was coming.
+She breathlessly awaited the next words, her heart big with an emotion
+which she would not acknowledge to herself.
+
+"I do not wish to give you any pain," said Virginie blandly. "Twenty
+times the words have been on my lips, but I hesitated. Pray don't
+think I bear you any malice."
+
+She tipped up her cup and drank the last drop of her coffee. Gervaise,
+with her heart in her mouth, waited in a dull agony of suspense,
+asking herself if Virginie could have forgiven the insult in the
+lavatory. There was a glitter in the woman's eyes she did not like.
+
+"You had an excuse," Virginie added as she placed her cup on the
+table. "You had been abominably treated. I should have killed
+someone." And then, dropping her little-affected tone, she continued
+more rapidly:
+
+"They were not happy, I assure you, not at all happy. They lived in a
+dirty street, where the mud was up to their knees. I went to breakfast
+with them two days after he left you and found them in the height of
+a quarrel. You know that Adele is a wretch. She is my sister, to be
+sure, but she is a wretch all the same. As to Lantier--well, you know
+him, so I need not describe him. But for a yes or a no he would not
+hesitate to thresh any woman that lives. Oh, they had a beautiful
+time! Their quarrels were heard all over the neighborhood. One day
+the police were sent for, they made such a hubbub."
+
+She talked on and on, telling things that were enough to make the hair
+stand up on one's head. Gervaise listened, as pale as death, with a
+nervous trembling of her lips which might have been taken for a smile.
+For seven years she had never heard Lantier's name, and she would
+not have believed that she could have felt any such overwhelming
+agitation. She could no longer be jealous of Adele, but she smiled
+grimly as she thought of the blows she had received in her turn from
+Lantier, and she would have listened for hours to all that Virginia
+had to tell, but she did not ask a question for some time. Finally
+she said:
+
+"And do they still live in that same place?"
+
+"No indeed! But I have not told you all yet. They separated a week
+ago."
+
+"Separated!" exclaimed the clearstarcher.
+
+"Who is separated?" asked Clemence, interrupting her conversation
+with Mamma Coupeau.
+
+"No one," said Virginie, "or at least no one whom you know."
+
+As she spoke she looked at Gervaise and seemed to take a positive
+delight in disturbing her still more. She suddenly asked her what
+she would do or say if Lantier should suddenly make his appearance,
+for men were so strange; no one could ever tell what they would do.
+Lantier was quite capable of returning to his old love. Then Gervaise
+interrupted her and rose to the occasion. She answered with grave
+dignity that she was married now and that if Lantier should appear
+she would ask him to leave. There could never be anything more between
+them, not even the most distant acquaintance.
+
+"I know very well," she said, "that Etienne belongs to him, and if
+Lantier desires to see his son I shall place no obstacle in his way.
+But as to myself, Madame Poisson, he shall never touch my little
+finger again! It is finished."
+
+As she uttered these last words she traced a cross in the air to seal
+her oath, and as if desirous to put an end to the conversation, she
+called out to her women:
+
+"Do you think the ironing will be done today if you sit still? To
+work! To work!"
+
+The women did not move; they were lulled to apathy by the heat, and
+Gervaise herself found it very difficult to resume her labors. Her
+curtains had dried in all this time, and some coffee had been spilled
+on them, and she must wash out the spots.
+
+"Au revoir!" said Virginie. "I came out to buy a half pound of cheese.
+Poisson will think I am frozen to death!"
+
+The better part of the day was now gone, and it was this way every
+day, for the shop was the refuge and haunt of all the chilly people
+in the neighborhood. Gervaise liked the reputation of having the
+most comfortable room in the _Quartier_, and she held her receptions,
+as the Lorilleux and Boche clique said, with a sniff of disdain. She
+would, in fact, have liked to bring in the very poor whom she saw
+shivering outside. She became very friendly toward a journeyman
+painter, an old man of seventy, who lived in a loft of the house,
+where he shivered with cold and hunger. He had lost his three sons
+in the Crimea, and for two years his hand had been so cramped by
+rheumatism that he could not hold a brush.
+
+Whenever Gervaise saw Father Bru she called him in, made a place for
+him near the stove and gave him some bread and cheese. Father Bru,
+with his white beard and his face wrinkled like an old apple, sat
+in silent content for hours at a time, enjoying the warmth and the
+crackling of the coke.
+
+"What are you thinking about?" Gervaise would say gaily.
+
+"Of nothing--of all sorts of things," he would reply with a dazed air.
+
+The workwomen laughed and thought it a good joke to ask if he were in
+love. He paid little heed to them but relapsed into silent thought.
+
+From this time Virginie often spoke to Gervaise of Lantier, and one
+day she said she had just met him. But as the clearstarcher made no
+reply Virginie then said no more. But on the next day she returned to
+the subject and told her that he had talked long and tenderly of her.
+Gervaise was much troubled by these whispered conversations in the
+corner of her shop. The name of Lantier made her faint and sick at
+heart. She believed herself to be an honest woman. She meant, in every
+way, to do right and to shun the wrong, because she felt that only in
+doing so could she be happy. She did not think much of Coupeau because
+she was conscious of no shortcomings toward him. But she thought of
+her friend at the forge, and it seemed to her that this return of her
+interest in Lantier, faint and undecided as it was, was an infidelity
+to Goujet and to that tender friendship which had become so very
+precious to her. Her heart was much troubled in these days. She dwelt
+on that time when her first lover left her. She imagined another day
+when, quitting Adele, he might return to her--with that old familiar
+trunk.
+
+When she went into the street it was with a spasm of terror. She
+fancied that every step behind her was Lantier's. She dared not
+look around lest his hand should glide about her waist. He might
+be watching for her at any time. He might come to her door in the
+afternoon, and this idea brought a cold sweat to her forehead, because
+he would certainly kiss her on her ear as he had often teased her by
+doing in the years gone by. It was this kiss she dreaded. Its dull
+reverberation deafened her to all outside sounds, and she could hear
+only the beatings of her own heart. When these terrors assailed her
+the forge was her only asylum, from whence she returned smiling and
+serene, feeling that Goujet, whose sonorous hammer had put all her
+bad dreams to flight, would protect her always.
+
+What a happy season this was after all! The clearstarcher always
+carried a certain basket of clothes to her customer each week, because
+it gave her a pretext for going into the forge, as it was on her
+way. As soon as she turned the corner of the street in which it was
+situated she felt as lighthearted as if she were going to the country.
+The black charcoal dust in the road, the black smoke rising slowly
+from the chimneys, interested and pleased her as much as a mossy path
+through the woods. Afar off the forge was red even at midday, and
+her heart danced in time with the hammers. Goujet was expecting her
+and making more noise than usual, that she might hear him at a great
+distance. She gave Etienne a light tap on his cheek and sat quietly
+watching these two--this man and boy, who were so dear to her--for an
+hour without speaking. When the sparks touched her tender skin she
+rather enjoyed the sensation. He, in his turn, was fully aware of
+the happiness she felt in being there, and he reserved the work which
+required skill for the time when she could look on in wonder and
+admiration. It was an idyl that they were unconsciously enacting all
+that spring, and when Gervaise returned to her home it was in a spirit
+of sweet content.
+
+By degrees her unreasonable fears of Lantier were conquered. Coupeau
+was behaving very badly at this time, and one evening as she passed
+the Assommoir she was certain she saw him drinking with Mes-Bottes.
+She hurried on lest she should seem to be watching him. But as she
+hastened she looked over her shoulder. Yes, it was Coupeau who was
+tossing down a glass of liquor with an air as if it were no new
+thing. He had lied to her then; he did drink brandy. She was in utter
+despair, and all her old horror of brandy returned. Wine she could
+have forgiven--wine was good for a working man--liquor, on the
+contrary, was his ruin and took from him all desire for the food that
+nourished and gave him strength for his daily toil. Why did not the
+government interfere and prevent the manufacture of such pernicious
+things?
+
+When she reached her home she found the whole house in confusion. Her
+employees had left their work and were in the courtyard. She asked
+what the matter was.
+
+"It is Father Bijard beating his wife; he is as drunk as a fool, and
+he drove her up the stairs to her room, where he is murdering her.
+Just listen!"
+
+Gervaise flew up the stairs. She was very fond of Mme Bijard, who was
+her laundress and whose courage and industry she greatly admired. On
+the sixth floor a little crowd was assembled. Mme Boche stood at an
+open door.
+
+"Have done!" she cried. "Have done, or the police will be summoned."
+
+No one dared enter the room, because Bijard was well known to be like
+a madman when he was tipsy. He was rarely thoroughly sober, and on the
+occasional days when he condescended to work he always had a bottle
+of brandy at his side. He rarely ate anything, and if a match had been
+touched to his mouth he would have taken fire like a torch.
+
+"Would you let her be killed?" exclaimed Gervaise, trembling from head
+to foot, and she entered the attic room, which was very clean and very
+bare, for the man had sold the very sheets off the bed to satisfy his
+mad passion for drink. In this terrible struggle for life the table
+had been thrown over, and the two chairs also. On the floor lay the
+poor woman with her skirts drenched as she had come from the washtub,
+her hair streaming over her bloody face, uttering low groans at each
+kick the brute gave her.
+
+The neighbors whispered to each other that she had refused to give
+him the money she had earned that day. Boche called up the staircase
+to his wife:
+
+"Come down, I say; let him kill her if he will. It will only make one
+fool the less in the world!"
+
+Father Bru followed Gervaise into the room, and the two expostulated
+with the madman. But he turned toward them, pale and threatening;
+a white foam glistened on his lips, and in his faded eyes there was a
+murderous expression. He grasped Father Bru by the shoulder and threw
+him over the table and shook Gervaise until her teeth chattered and
+then returned to his wife, who lay motionless, with her mouth wide
+open and her eyes closed; and during this frightful scene little
+Lalie, four years old, was in the corner, looking on at the murder
+of her mother. The child's arms were round her sister Henriette,
+a baby who had just been weaned. She stood with a sad, solemn face
+and serious, melancholy eyes but shed no tears.
+
+When Bijard slipped and fell Gervaise and Father Bru helped the poor
+creature to her feet, who then burst into sobs. Lalie went to her
+side, but she did not cry, for the child was already habituated to
+such scenes. And as Gervaise went down the stairs she was haunted by
+the strange look of resignation and courage in Lalie's eyes; it was
+an expression belonging to maturity and experience rather than to
+childhood.
+
+"Your husband is on the other side of the street," said Clemence
+as soon as she saw Gervaise; "he is as tipsy as possible!"
+
+Coupeau reeled in, breaking a square of glass with his shoulder as
+he missed the doorway. He was not tipsy but drunk, with his teeth set
+firmly together and a pinched expression about the nose. And Gervaise
+instantly knew that it was the liquor of the Assommoir which had
+vitiated his blood. She tried to smile and coaxed him to go to bed.
+But he shook her off and as he passed her gave her a blow.
+
+He was just like the other--the beast upstairs who was now snoring,
+tired out by beating his wife. She was chilled to the heart and
+desperate. Were all men alike? She thought of Lantier and of her
+husband and wondered if there was no happiness in the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+A BIRTHDAY FÊTE
+
+
+The nineteenth of June was the clearstarcher's birthday. There was
+always an excuse for a fete in the Coupeau mansion; saints were
+invented to serve as a pretext for idleness and festivities. Virginie
+highly commended Gervaise for living luxuriously. What was the use
+of her husband drinking up everything? Why should she save for her
+husband to spend at all the wineshops in the neighborhood? And
+Gervaise accepted this excuse. She was growing very indolent and
+much stouter, while her lameness had perceptibly increased.
+
+For a whole month they discussed the preparation for this fete; they
+talked over dishes and licked their lips. They must have something out
+of the common way. Gervaise was much troubled as to whom she should
+invite. She wanted exactly twelve at table, not one more or one less.
+She, her husband, her mother-in-law and Mme Lerat were four. The
+Goujets and Poissons were four more. At first she thought she would
+not ask her two women, Mme Putois and Clemence, lest it should make
+them too familiar, but as the entertainment was constantly under
+discussion before them she ended by inviting them too. Thus there were
+ten; she must have two more. She decided on a reconciliation with the
+Lorilleuxs, who had extended the olive branch several times lately.
+Family quarrels were bad things, she said. When the Boche people heard
+of this they showed several little courtesies to Gervaise, who felt
+obliged to urge them to come also. This made fourteen without counting
+the children. She had never had a dinner like this, and she was both
+triumphant and terrified.
+
+The nineteenth fell on a Monday, and Gervaise thought it very
+fortunate, as she could begin her cooking on Sunday afternoon. On
+Saturday, while the women hurried through their work, there was an
+endless discussion as to what the dishes should be. In the last three
+weeks only one thing had been definitely decided upon--a roast goose
+stuffed with onions. The goose had been purchased, and Mme Coupeau
+brought it in that Mme Putois might guess its weight. The thing looked
+enormous, and the fat seemed to burst from its yellow skin.
+
+"Soup before that, of course," said Gervaise, "and we must have
+another dish."
+
+Clemence proposed rabbits, but Gervaise wanted something more
+distinguished. Mme Putois suggested a _blanquette du veau_.
+
+That was a new idea. Veal was always good too. Then Mme Coupeau made
+an allusion to fish, which no one seconded. Evidently fish was not
+in favor. Gervaise proposed a sparerib of pork and potatoes, which
+brightened all their faces, just as Virginie came in like a whirlwind.
+
+"You are just in season. Mamma Coupeau, show her the goose," cried
+Gervaise.
+
+Virginie admired it, guessed the weight and laid it down on the
+ironing table between an embroidered skirt and a pile of shirts. She
+was evidently thinking of something else. She soon led Gervaise into
+the back shop.
+
+"I have come to warn you," she said quickly. "I just met Lantier
+at the very end of this street, and I am sure he followed me, and
+I naturally felt alarmed on your account, my dear."
+
+Gervaise turned very pale. What did he want of her? And why on earth
+should he worry her now amid all the busy preparations for the fete?
+It seemed as if she never in her life had set her heart on anything
+that she was not disappointed. Why was it that she could never have
+a minute's peace?
+
+But Virginie declared that she would look out for her. If Lantier
+followed her she would certainly give him over to the police. Her
+husband had been in office now for a month, and Virginie was very
+dictatorial and aggressive and talked of arresting everyone who
+displeased her. She raised her voice as she spoke, but Gervaise
+implored her to be cautious, because her women could hear every word.
+They went back to the front shop, and she was the first to speak.
+
+"We have said nothing of vegetables," she said quietly.
+
+"Peas, with a bit of pork," said Virginie authoritatively.
+
+This was agreed upon with enthusiasm.
+
+The next day at three Mamma Coupeau lighted the two furnaces belonging
+to the house and a third one borrowed from Mme Boche, and at half-past
+three the soup was gently simmering in a large pot lent by the
+restaurant at the corner. They had decided to cook the veal and the
+pork the day previous, as those two dishes could be warmed up so well,
+and would leave for Monday only the goose to roast and the vegetables.
+The back shop was ruddy with the glow from the three furnaces--sauces
+were bubbling with a strong smell of browned flour. Mamma Coupeau
+and Gervaise, each with large white aprons, were washing celery and
+running hither and thither with pepper and salt or hurriedly turning
+the veal with flat wooden sticks made for the purpose. They had told
+Coupeau pleasantly that his room was better than his company, but they
+had plenty of people there that afternoon. The smell of the cooking
+found its way out into the street and up through the house, and the
+neighbors, impelled by curiosity, came down on all sorts of pretexts,
+merely to discover what was going on.
+
+About five Virginie made her appearance. She had seen Lantier twice.
+Indeed, it was impossible nowadays to enter the street and not see
+him. Mme Boche, too, had spoken to him on the corner below. Then
+Gervaise, who was on the point of going for a sou's worth of fried
+onions to season her soup, shuddered from head to foot and said she
+would not go out ever again. The concierge and Virginie added to her
+terror by a succession of stories of men who lay in wait for women,
+with knives and pistols hidden in their coats.
+
+Such things were read every day in the papers! When such a scamp as
+Lantier found a woman happy and comfortable, he was always wretched
+until he had made her so too. Virginie said she would go for the
+onions. "Women," she observed sententiously, "should protect each
+other, as well as serve each other, in such matters." When she
+returned she reported that Lantier was no longer there. The
+conversation around the stove that evening never once drifted from
+that subject. Mme Boche said that she, under similar circumstances,
+should tell her husband, but Gervaise was horror-struck at this and
+begged her never to breathe one single word about it. Besides, she
+fancied her husband had caught a glimpse of Lantier from something he
+had muttered amid a volley of oaths two or three nights before. She
+was filled with dread lest these two men should meet. She knew Coupeau
+so well that she had long since discovered that he was still jealous
+of Lantier, and while the four women discussed the imminent danger of
+a terrible tragedy the sauces and the meats hissed and simmered on the
+furnaces, and they ended by each taking a cup of soup to discover what
+improvement was desirable.
+
+Monday arrived. Now that Gervaise had invited fourteen to dine, she
+began to be afraid there would not be room and finally decided to lay
+the table in the shop. She was uncertain how to place the table, which
+was the ironing table on trestles. In the midst of the hubbub and
+confusion a customer arrived and made a scene because her linen had
+not come home on the Friday previous. She insisted on having every
+piece that moment--clean or dirty, ironed or rough-dry.
+
+Then Gervaise, to excuse herself, told a lie with wonderful
+_sang-froid_. It was not her fault. She was cleaning her rooms. Her
+women would be at work again the next day, and she got rid of her
+customer, who went away soothed by the promise that her wash would
+be sent to her early the following morning.
+
+But Gervaise lost her temper, which was not a common thing with
+her, and as soon as the woman's back was turned called her by an
+opprobrious name and declared that if she did as people wished she
+could not take time to eat and vowed she would not have an iron heated
+that day or the next in her establishment. No! Not if the Grand Turk
+himself should come and entreat her on his knees to do up a collar
+for him. She meant to enjoy herself a little occasionally!
+
+The entire morning was consumed in making purchases. Three times did
+Gervaise go out and come in, laden with bundles. But when she went the
+fourth time for the wine she discovered that she had not money enough.
+She could have got the wine on credit, but she could not be without
+money in the house, for a thousand little unexpected expenses arise
+at such times, and she and her mother-in-law racked their brains
+to know what they should do to get the twenty francs they considered
+necessary. Mme Coupeau, who had once been housekeeper for an actress,
+was the first to speak of the Mont-de-Piete. Gervaise laughed gaily.
+
+"To be sure! Why had she not thought of it before?"
+
+She folded her black silk dress and pinned it in a napkin; then she
+hid the bundle under her mother-in-law's apron and bade her keep it
+very flat, lest the neighbors, who were so terribly inquisitive,
+should find it out, and then she watched the old woman from the door
+to see that no one followed her.
+
+But when Mamma Coupeau had gone a few steps Gervaise called her back
+into the shop and, taking her wedding ring from her finger, said:
+
+"Take this, too, for we shall need all the money we can get today."
+
+And when the old woman came back with twenty-five francs she clapped
+her hands with joy. She ordered six bottles of wine with seals to
+drink with the roast. The Lorilleuxs would be green with envy. For a
+fortnight this had been her idea, to crush the Lorilleuxs, who were
+never known to ask a friend to their table; who, on the contrary,
+locked their doors when they had anything special to eat. Gervaise
+wanted to give her a lesson and would have liked to offer the
+strangers who passed her door a seat at her table. Money was a very
+good thing and mighty pretty to look at, but it was good for nothing
+but to spend.
+
+Mamma Coupeau and Gervaise began to lay their table at three o'clock.
+They had hung curtains before the windows, but as the day was warm the
+door into the street was open. The two women did not put on a plate
+or salt spoon without the avowed intention of worrying the Lorilleuxs.
+They had given them seats where the table could be seen to the best
+advantage, and they placed before them the real china plates.
+
+"No, no, Mamma," cried Gervaise, "not those napkins. I have two which
+are real damask."
+
+"Well! Well! I declare!" murmured the old woman. "What will they say
+to all this?"
+
+And they smiled as they stood at opposite sides of this long table
+with its glossy white cloth and its places for fourteen carefully
+laid. They worshiped there as if it had been a chapel erected in the
+middle of the shop.
+
+"How false they are!" said Gervaise. "Do you remember how she declared
+she had lost a piece of one of the chains when she was carrying them
+home? That was only to get out of giving you your five francs."
+
+"Which I have never had from them but just twice," muttered the old
+woman.
+
+"I will wager that next month they will invent another tale. That is
+one reason why they lock their doors when they have a rabbit. They
+think people might say, 'If you can eat rabbits you can give five
+francs to your mother!' How mean they are! What do they think would
+have become of you if I had not asked you to come and live here?"
+
+Her mother-in-law shook her head. She was rather severe in her
+judgment of the Lorilleuxs that day, inasmuch as she was influenced
+by the gorgeous entertainment given by the Coupeaus. She liked the
+excitement; she liked to cook. She generally lived pretty well with
+Gervaise, but on those days which occur in all households, when the
+dinner was scanty and unsatisfactory, she called herself a most
+unhappy woman, left to the mercy of a daughter-in-law. In the depths
+of her heart she still loved Mme Lorilleux; she was her eldest child.
+
+"You certainly would have weighed some pounds less with her,"
+continued Gervaise. "No coffee, no tobacco, no sweets. And do you
+imagine that they would have put two mattresses on your bed?"
+
+"No indeed," answered the old woman, "but I wish to see them when
+they first come in--just to see how they look!"
+
+At four o'clock the goose was roasted, and Augustine, seated on a
+little footstool, was given a long-handled spoon and bidden to watch
+and baste it every few minutes. Gervaise was busy with the peas, and
+Mamma Coupeau, with her head a little confused, was waiting until it
+was time to heat the veal and the pork. At five the guests began to
+arrive. Clemence and Mme Putois, gorgeous to behold in their Sunday
+rig, were the first.
+
+Clemence wore a blue dress and had some geraniums in her hand; Madame
+was in black, with a bunch of heliotrope. Gervaise, whose hands were
+covered with flour, put them behind her back, came forward and kissed
+them cordially.
+
+After them came Virginie in scarf and hat, though she had only to
+cross the street; she wore a printed muslin and was as imposing as
+any lady in the land. She brought a pot of red carnations and put
+both her arms around her friend and kissed her.
+
+The offering brought by Boche was a pot of pansies, and his wife's was
+mignonette; Mme Lerat's, a lemon verbena. The three furnaces filled
+the room with an overpowering heat, and the frying potatoes drowned
+their voices. Gervaise was very sweet and smiling, thanking everyone
+for the flowers, at the same time making the dressing for the salad.
+The perfume of the flowers was perceived above all the smell of
+cooking.
+
+"Can't I help you?" said Virginie. "It is a shame to have you work so
+hard for three days on all these things that we shall gobble up in no
+time."
+
+"No indeed," answered Gervaise; "I am nearly through."
+
+The ladies covered the bed with their shawls and bonnets and then went
+into the shop that they might be out of the way and talked through the
+open door with much noise and loud laughing.
+
+At this moment Goujet appeared and stood timidly on the threshold with
+a tall white rosebush in his arms whose flowers brushed against his
+yellow beard. Gervaise ran toward him with her cheeks reddened by her
+furnaces. She took the plant, crying:
+
+"How beautiful!"
+
+He dared not kiss her, and she was compelled to offer her cheek to
+him, and both were embarrassed. He told her in a confused way that his
+mother was ill with sciatica and could not come. Gervaise was greatly
+disappointed, but she had no time to say much just then: she was
+beginning to be anxious about Coupeau--he ought to be in--then, too,
+where were the Lorilleuxs? She called Mme Lerat, who had arranged the
+reconciliation, and bade her go and see.
+
+Mme Lerat put on her hat and shawl with excessive care and departed.
+A solemn hush of expectation pervaded the room.
+
+Mme Lerat presently reappeared. She had come round by the street to
+give a more ceremonious aspect to the affair. She held the door open
+while Mme Lorilleux, in a silk dress, stood on the threshold. All the
+guests rose, and Gervaise went forward to meet her sister and kissed
+her, as had been agreed upon.
+
+"Come in! Come in!" she said. "We are friends again."
+
+"And I hope for always," answered her sister-in-law severely.
+
+After she was ushered in the same program had to be followed out with
+her husband. Neither of the two brought any flowers. They had refused
+to do so, saying that it would look as if they were bowing down to
+Wooden Legs. Gervaise summoned Augustine and bade her bring some wine
+and then filled glasses for all the party, and each drank the health
+of the family.
+
+"It is a good thing before soup," muttered Boche.
+
+Mamma Coupeau drew Gervaise into the next room.
+
+"Did you see her?" she said eagerly. "I was watching her, and when she
+saw the table her face was as long as my arm, and now she is gnawing
+her lips; she is so mad!"
+
+It was true the Lorilleuxs could not stand that table with its white
+linen, its shining glass and square piece of bread at each place. It
+was like a restaurant on the boulevard, and Mme Lorilleux felt of the
+cloth stealthily to ascertain if it were new.
+
+"We are all ready," cried Gervaise, reappearing and pulling down her
+sleeves over her white arms.
+
+"Where can Coupeau be?" she continued.
+
+"He is always late! He always forgets!" muttered his sister. Gervaise
+was in despair. Everything would be spoiled. She proposed that someone
+should go out and look for him. Goujet offered to go, and she said she
+would accompany him. Virginie followed, all three bareheaded. Everyone
+looked at them, so gay and fresh on a week-day. Virginie in her pink
+muslin and Gervaise in a white cambric with blue spots and a gray silk
+handkerchief knotted round her throat. They went to one wineshop after
+another, but no Coupeau. Suddenly, as they went toward the boulevard,
+his wife uttered an exclamation.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked Goujet.
+
+The clearstarcher was very pale and so much agitated that she could
+hardly stand. Virginie knew at once and, leaning over her, looked in
+at the restaurant and saw Lantier quietly dining.
+
+"I turned my foot," said Gervaise when she could speak. Finally at the
+Assommoir they found Coupeau and Poisson. They were standing in the
+center of an excited crowd. Coupeau, in a gray blouse, was quarreling
+with someone, and Poisson, who was not on duty that day, was listening
+quietly, his red mustache and imperial giving him, however, quite a
+formidable aspect.
+
+Goujet left the women outside and, going in, placed his hand on
+Coupeau's shoulder, who, when he saw his wife and Virginie, fell
+into a great rage.
+
+No, he would not move! He would not stand being followed about by
+women in this way! They might go home and eat their rubbishy dinner
+themselves! He did not want any of it!
+
+To appease him Goujet was compelled to drink with him, and finally
+he persuaded him to go with him. But when he was outside he said to
+Gervaise:
+
+"I am not going home; you need not think it!"
+
+She did not reply. She was trembling from head to foot. She had been
+speaking of Lantier to Virginie and begged the other to go on in
+front, while the two women walked on either side of Coupeau to prevent
+him from seeing Lantier as they passed the open window where he sat
+eating his dinner.
+
+But Coupeau knew that Lantier was there, for he said:
+
+"There's a fellow I know, and you know him too!"
+
+He then went on to accuse her, with many a coarse word, of coming out
+to look, not for him, but for her old lover, and then all at once he
+poured out a torrent of abuse upon Lantier, who, however, never looked
+up or appeared to hear it.
+
+Virginie at last coaxed Coupeau on, whose rage disappeared when they
+turned the corner of the street. They returned to the shop, however,
+in a very different mood from the one in which they had left it and
+found the guests, with very long faces, awaiting them.
+
+Coupeau shook hands with the ladies in succession, with difficulty
+keeping his feet as he did so, and Gervaise, in a choked voice, begged
+them to take their seats. But suddenly she perceived that Mme Goujet
+not having come, there was an empty seat next to Mme Lorilleux.
+
+"We are thirteen," she said, much disturbed, as she fancied this to be
+an additional proof of the misfortune which for some time she had felt
+to be hanging over them.
+
+The ladies, who were seated, started up. Mme Putois offered to leave
+because, she said, no one should fly in the face of Destiny; besides,
+she was not hungry. As to Boche, he laughed, and said it was all
+nonsense.
+
+"Wait!" cried Gervaise. "I will arrange it."
+
+And rushing out on the sidewalk, she called to Father Bru, who was
+crossing the street, and the old man followed her into the room.
+
+"Sit there," said the clearstarcher. "You are willing to dine with
+us, are you not?"
+
+He nodded acquiescence.
+
+"He will do as well as another," she continued in a low voice. "He
+rarely, if ever, had as much as he wanted to eat, and it will be a
+pleasure to us to see him enjoy his dinner."
+
+Goujet's eyes were damp, so much was he touched by the kind way in
+which Gervaise spoke, and the others felt that it would bring them
+good luck. Mme Lorilleux was the only one who seemed displeased. She
+drew her skirts away and looked down with disgusted mien upon the
+patched blouse at her side.
+
+Gervaise served the soup, and the guests were just lifting their
+spoons to their mouths when Virginie noticed that Coupeau had
+disappeared. He had probably returned to the more congenial society at
+the Assommoir, and someone said he might stay in the street; certainly
+no one would go after him, but just as they had swallowed the soup
+Coupeau appeared bearing two pots, one under each arm--a balsam and
+a wallflower. All the guests clapped their hands. He placed them on
+either side of Gervaise and, kissing her, he said:
+
+"I forgot you, my dear, but all the same I loved you very much."
+
+"Monsieur Coupeau is very amiable tonight; he has taken just enough
+to make him good natured," whispered one of the guests.
+
+This little act on the part of the host brought back the smiles to the
+faces around the table. The wine began to circulate, and the voices of
+the children were heard in the next room. Etienne, Nana, Pauline and
+little Victor Fauconnier were installed at a small table and were told
+to be very good.
+
+When the _blanquette du veau_ was served the guests were moved to
+enthusiasm. It was now half-past seven. The door of the shop was shut
+to keep out inquisitive eyes, and curtains hung before the windows.
+The veal was a great success; the sauce was delicious and the
+mushrooms extraordinarily good. Then came the sparerib of pork.
+Of course all these good things demanded a large amount of wine.
+
+In the next room at the children's table Nana was playing the mistress
+of the household. She was seated at the head of the table and for a
+while was quite dignified, but her natural gluttony made her forget
+her good manners when she saw Augustine stealing the peas from the
+plate, and she slapped the girl vehemently.
+
+"Take care, mademoiselle," said Augustine sulkily, "or I will tell
+your mother that I heard you ask Victor to kiss you."
+
+Now was the time for the goose. Two lamps were placed on the table,
+one at each end, and the disorder was very apparent: the cloth was
+stained and spotted. Gervaise left the table to reappear presently,
+bearing the goose in triumph. Lorilleux and his wife exchanged a look
+of dismay.
+
+"Who will cut it?" said the clearstarcher. "No, not I. It is too big
+for me to manage!"
+
+Coupeau said he could do it. After all, it was a simple thing
+enough--he should just tear it to pieces.
+
+There was a cry of dismay.
+
+Mme Lerat had an inspiration.
+
+"Monsieur Poisson is the man," she said; "of course he understands the
+use of arms." And she handed the sergeant the carving knife. Poisson
+made a stiff inclination of his whole body and drew the dish toward
+him and went to work in a slow, methodical fashion. As he thrust his
+knife into the breast Lorilleux was seized with momentary patriotism,
+and he exclaimed:
+
+"If it were only a Cossack!"
+
+At last the goose was carved and distributed, and the whole party
+ate as if they were just beginning their dinner. Presently there was
+a grand outcry about the heat, and Coupeau opened the door into the
+street. Gervaise devoured large slices of the breast, hardly speaking,
+but a little ashamed of her own gluttony in the presence of Goujet.
+She never forgot old Bru, however, and gave him the choicest morsels,
+which he swallowed unconsciously, his palate having long since lost
+the power of distinguishing flavors. Mamma Coupeau picked a bone with
+her two remaining teeth.
+
+And the wine! Good heavens, how much they drank! A pile of empty
+bottles stood in the corner. When Mme Putois asked for water Coupeau
+himself removed the carafes from the table. No one should drink water,
+he declared, in his house--did she want to swallow frogs and live
+things?--and he filled up all the glasses. Hypocrites might talk as
+much as they pleased; the juice of the grape was a mighty good thing
+and a famous invention!
+
+The guests all laughed and approved; working people must have their
+wine, they said, and Father Noah had planted the vine for them
+especially. Wine gave courage and strength for work; and if it chanced
+that a man sometimes took a drop too much, in the end it did him no
+harm, and life looked brighter to him for a time. Goujet himself, who
+was usually so prudent and abstemious, was becoming a little excited.
+Boche was growing red, and the Lorilleux pair very pale, while Poisson
+assumed a solemn and severe aspect. The men were all more or less
+tipsy, and the ladies--well, the less we say of the ladies, the
+better.
+
+Suddenly Gervaise remembered the six bottles of sealed wine she had
+omitted to serve with the goose as she had intended. She produced them
+amid much applause. The glasses were filled anew, and Poisson rose
+and proposed the health of their hostess.
+
+"And fifty more birthdays!" cried Virginie.
+
+"No, no," answered Gervaise with a smile that had a touch of sadness
+in it. "I do not care to live to be very old. There comes a time when
+one is glad to go!"
+
+A little crowd had collected outside and smiled at the scene, and
+the smell of the goose pervaded the whole street. The clerks in the
+grocery opposite licked their lips and said it was good and curiously
+estimated the amount of wine that had been consumed.
+
+None of the guests were annoyed by being the subjects of observation,
+although they were fully aware of it and, in fact, rather enjoyed it.
+Coupeau, catching sight of a familiar face, held up a bottle, which,
+being accepted with a nod, he sent it out with a glass. This
+established a sort of fraternity with the street.
+
+In the next room the children were unmanageable. They had taken
+possession of a saucepan and were drumming on it with spoons. Mamma
+Coupeau and Father Bru were talking earnestly. The old man was
+speaking of his two sons who had died in the Crimea. Ah, had they
+but lived, he would have had bread to eat in his old age!
+
+Mme Coupeau, whose tongue was a little thick, said:
+
+"Yes, but one has a good deal of unhappiness with children. Many an
+hour have I wept on account of mine."
+
+Father Bru hardly heard what she said but talked on, half to himself.
+
+"I can't get any work to do. I am too old. When I ask for any people
+laugh and ask if it was I who blacked Henri Quatre's boots. Last year
+I earned thirty sous by painting a bridge. I had to lie on my back
+all the time, close to the water, and since then I have coughed
+incessantly." He looked down at his poor stiff hands and added,
+"I know I am good for nothing. I wish I was by the side of my boys.
+It is a great pity that one can't kill one's self when one begins
+to grow old."
+
+"Really," said Lorilleux, "I cannot see why the government does not
+do something for people in your condition. Men who are disabled--"
+
+"But workmen are not soldiers," interrupted Poisson, who considered
+it his duty to espouse the cause of the government. "It is foolish
+to expect them to do impossibilities."
+
+The dessert was served. In the center was a pyramid of spongecake
+in the form of a temple with melonlike sides, and on the top was an
+artificial rose with a butterfly of silver paper hovering over it,
+held by a gilt wire. Two drops of gum in the heart of the rose stood
+for dew. On the left was a deep plate with a bit of cheese, and on the
+other side of the pyramid was a dish of strawberries, which had been
+sugared and carefully crushed.
+
+In the salad dish there were a few leaves of lettuce left.
+
+"Madame Boche," said Gervaise courteously, "pray eat these. I know
+how fond you are of salad."
+
+The concierge shook her head. There were limits even to her
+capacities, and she looked at the lettuce with regret. Clemence told
+how she had once eaten three quarts of water cresses at her breakfast.
+Mme Putois declared that she enjoyed lettuce with a pinch of salt and
+no dressing, and as they talked the ladies emptied the salad bowl.
+
+None of the guests were dismayed at the dessert, although they had
+eaten so enormously. They had the night before them too; there was no
+need of haste. The men lit their pipes and drank more wine while they
+watched Gervaise cut the cake. Poisson, who prided himself on his
+knowledge of the habits of good society, rose and took the rose from
+the top and presented it to the hostess amid the loud applause of the
+whole party. She fastened it just over her heart, and the butterfly
+fluttered at every movement. A song was proposed--comic songs were a
+specialty with Boche--and the whole party joined in the chorus. The
+men kept time with their heels and the women with their knives on
+their glasses. The windows of the shop jarred with the noise. Virginie
+had disappeared twice, and the third time, when she came back, she
+said to Gervaise:
+
+"My dear, he is still at the restaurant and pretends to be reading
+his paper. I fear he is meditating some mischief."
+
+She spoke of Lantier. She had been out to see if he were anywhere
+in the vicinity. Gervaise became very grave.
+
+"Is he tipsy?" she asked.
+
+"No indeed, and that is what troubled me. Why on earth should he stay
+there so long if he is not drinking? My heart is in my mouth; I am so
+afraid something will happen."
+
+The clearstarcher begged her to say no more. Mme Putois started up
+and began a fierce piratical song, standing stiff and erect in her
+black dress, her pale face surrounded by her black lace cap, and
+gesticulating violently. Poisson nodded approval. He had been to sea,
+and he knew all about it.
+
+Gervaise, assisted by her mother-in-law, now poured out the coffee.
+Her guests insisted on a song from her, declaring that it was her
+turn. She refused. Her face was disturbed and pale, so much so that
+she was asked if the goose disagreed with her.
+
+Finally she began to sing a plaintive melody all about dreams and
+rest. Her eyelids half closed as she ended, and she peered out into
+the darkness. Then followed a barcarole from Mme Boche and a romance
+from Lorilleux, in which figured perfumes of Araby, ivory throats,
+ebony hair, kisses, moonlight and guitars! Clemence followed with
+a song which recalled the country with its descriptions of birds
+and flowers. Virginie brought down the house with her imitation of
+a vivandiere, standing with her hand on her hip and a wineglass in
+her hand, which she emptied down her throat as she finished.
+
+But the grand success of the evening was Goujet, who sang in his
+rich bass the _"Adieux d'Abd-et-Kader."_ The words issued from his
+yellow beard like the call of a trumpet and thrilled everyone around
+the table.
+
+Virginie whispered to Gervaise:
+
+"I have just seen Lantier pass the door. Good heavens! There he is
+again, standing still and looking in."
+
+Gervaise caught her breath and timidly turned around. The crowd had
+increased, attracted by the songs. There were soldiers and shopkeepers
+and three little girls, five or six years old, holding each other by
+the hand, grave and silent, struck with wonder and admiration.
+
+Lantier was directly in front of the door. Gervaise met his eyes and
+felt the very marrow of her bones chilled; she could not move hand
+or foot.
+
+Coupeau called for more wine, and Clemence helped herself to more
+strawberries. The singing ceased, and the conversation turned upon
+a woman who had hanged herself the day before in the next street.
+
+It was now Mme Lerat's turn to amuse the company, but she needed to
+make certain preparations.
+
+She dipped the corner of her napkin into a glass of water and applied
+it to her temples because she was too warm. Then she asked for a
+teaspoonful of brandy and wiped her lips.
+
+"I will sing _'L'Enfant du Bon Dieu,'_" she said pompously.
+
+She stood up, with her square shoulders like those of a man, and
+began:
+
+    "L'Enfant perdu que sa mere abandonne,
+    Troue toujours un asile au Saint lieu,
+    Dieu qui le voit, le defend de son trone,
+    L'Enfant perdu, c'est L'Enfant du bon Dieu."
+
+She raised her eyes to heaven and placed one hand on her heart; her
+voice was not without a certain sympathetic quality, and Gervaise,
+already quivering with emotion caused by the knowledge of Lantier's
+presence, could no longer restrain her tears. It seemed to her that
+she was the deserted child whom _le bon Dieu_ had taken under His
+care. Clemence, who was quite tipsy, burst into loud sobs. The ladies
+took out their handkerchiefs and pressed them to their eyes, rather
+proud of their tenderness of heart.
+
+The men felt it their duty to respect the feeling shown by the women
+and were, in fact, somewhat touched themselves. The wine had softened
+their hearts apparently.
+
+Gervaise and Virginie watched the shadows outside. Mme Boche, in her
+turn, now caught a glimpse of Lantier and uttered an exclamation as
+she wiped away her fast-falling tears. The three women exchanged
+terrified, anxious glances.
+
+"Good heavens!" muttered Virginie. "Suppose Coupeau should turn
+around. There would be a murder, I am convinced." And the earnestness
+of their fixed eyes became so apparent that finally he said:
+
+"What are you staring at?"
+
+And leaning forward, he, too, saw Lantier.
+
+"This is too much," he muttered, "the dirty ruffian! It is too much,
+and I won't have it!"
+
+As he started to his feet with an oath, Gervaise put her hand on his
+arm imploringly.
+
+"Put down that knife," she said, "and do not go out, I entreat of
+you."
+
+Virginie took away the knife that Coupeau had snatched from the table,
+but she could not prevent him from going into the street. The other
+guests saw nothing, so entirely absorbed were they in the touching
+words which Mme Lerat was still singing.
+
+Gervaise sat with her hands clasped convulsively, breathless with
+fear, expecting to hear a cry of rage from the street and see one of
+the two men fall to the ground. Virginie and Mme Boche had something
+of the same feeling. Coupeau had been so overcome by the fresh air
+that when he rushed forward to take Lantier by the collar he missed
+his footing and found himself seated quietly in the gutter.
+
+Lantier moved aside a little without taking his hands from his
+pockets.
+
+Coupeau staggered to his feet again, and a violent quarrel commenced.
+Gervaise pressed her hands over her eyes; suddenly all was quiet, and
+she opened her eyes again and looked out.
+
+To her intense astonishment she saw Lantier and her husband talking
+in a quiet, friendly manner.
+
+Gervaise exchanged a look with Mme Boche and Virginie. What did this
+mean?
+
+As the women watched them the two men began to walk up and down in
+front of the shop. They were talking earnestly. Coupeau seemed to be
+urging something, and Lantier refusing. Finally Coupeau took Lantier's
+arm and almost dragged him toward the shop.
+
+"I tell you, you must!" he cried. "You shall drink a glass of wine
+with us. Men will be men all the world over. My wife and I know that
+perfectly well."
+
+Mme Lerat had finished her song and seated herself with the air of
+being utterly exhausted. She asked for a glass of wine. When she sang
+that song, she said, she was always torn to pieces, and it left her
+nerves in a terrible state.
+
+Lantier had been placed at the table by Coupeau and was eating a
+piece of cake, leisurely dipping it into his glass of wine. With
+the exception of Mme Boche and Virginie, no one knew him.
+
+The Lorilleuxs looked at him with some suspicion, which, however,
+was very far from the mark. An awkward silence followed, broken by
+Coupeau, who said simply:
+
+"He is a friend of ours!"
+
+And turning to his wife, he added:
+
+"Can't you move round a little? Perhaps there is a cup of hot coffee!"
+
+Gervaise looked from one to the other. She was literally dazed. When
+her husband first appeared with her former lover she had clasped her
+hands over her forehead with that instinctive gesture with which in
+a great storm one waits for the approach of the thunderclap.
+
+It did not seem possible that the walls would not fall and crush them
+all. Then seeing the two men calmly seated together, it all at once
+seemed perfectly natural to her. She was tired of thinking about it
+and preferred to accept it. Why, after all, should she worry? No one
+else did. Everyone seemed to be satisfied; why should not she be also?
+
+The children had fallen asleep in the back room, Pauline with her head
+on Etienne's shoulder. Gervaise started as her eyes fell on her boy.
+She was shocked at the thought of his father sitting there eating cake
+without showing the least desire to see his child. She longed to
+awaken him and show him to Lantier. And then again she had a feeling
+of passing wonder at the manner in which things settled themselves
+in this world.
+
+She would not disturb the serenity of matters now, so she brought
+in the coffeepot and poured out a cup for Lantier, who received it
+without even looking up at her as he murmured his thanks.
+
+"Now it is my turn to sing!" shouted Coupeau.
+
+His song was one familiar to them all and even to the street, for the
+little crowd at the door joined in the chorus. The guests within were
+all more or less tipsy, and there was so much noise that the policemen
+ran to quell a riot, but when they saw Poisson they bowed respectfully
+and passed on.
+
+No one of the party ever knew how or at what hour the festivities
+terminated. It must have been very late, for there was not a human
+being in the street when they departed. They vaguely remembered having
+joined hands and danced around the table. Gervaise remembered that
+Lantier was the last to leave, that he passed her as she stood in the
+doorway. She felt a breath on her cheek, but whether it was his or the
+night air she could not tell.
+
+Mme Lerat had refused to return to Batignolles so late, and a mattress
+was laid on the floor in the shop near the table. She slept there amid
+the debris of the feast, and a neighbor's cat profited by an open
+window to establish herself by her side, where she crunched the bones
+of the goose all night between her fine, sharp teeth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
+
+
+The following Saturday Coupeau, who had not been home to dinner, came
+in with Lantier about ten o'clock. They had been eating pigs' feet at
+a restaurant at Montmarte.
+
+"Don't scold, wife," said Coupeau; "we have not been drinking, you
+see; we can walk perfectly straight." And he went on to say how they
+had met each other quite by accident in the street and how Lantier had
+refused to drink with him, saying that when a man had married a nice
+little woman he had no business to throw away his money in that way.
+Gervaise listened with a faint smile; she had no idea of scolding. Oh
+no, it was not worth the trouble, but she was much agitated at seeing
+the two men together so soon again, and with trembling hands she
+knotted up her loosened hair.
+
+Her workwomen had been gone some time. Nana and Mamma Coupeau were in
+bed, and Gervaise, who was just closing her shutters when her husband
+appeared, brought out some glasses and the remains of a bottle of
+brandy. Lantier did not sit down and avoided addressing her directly.
+
+When she served him, however, he exclaimed:
+
+"A drop, madame; a mere drop!"
+
+Coupeau looked at them for a moment and then expressed his mind fully.
+They were no fools, he said, nor were they children. The past was the
+past. If people kept up their enmities for nine or ten years no one
+would have a soul to speak to soon. As for himself, he was made
+differently. He knew they were honest people, and he was sure he
+could trust them.
+
+"Of course," murmured Gervaise, hardly knowing what she said, "of
+course."
+
+"I regard her as a sister," said Lantier, "only as a sister."
+
+"Give us your hand on that," cried Coupeau, "and let us be good
+friends in the future. After all, a good heart is better than gold,
+and I estimate friendship as above all price."
+
+And he gave himself a little tap on his breast and looked about for
+applause, as if he had uttered rather a noble sentiment.
+
+Then the three silently drank their brandy. Gervaise looked at Lantier
+and saw him for the first time, for on the night of the fete she had
+seen him, as it were, through a glass, darkly.
+
+He had grown very stout, and his arms and legs very heavy. But his
+face was still handsome, although somewhat bloated by liquor and good
+living. He was dressed with care and did not look any older than his
+years. He was thirty-five. He wore gray pantaloons and a dark blue
+frock coat, like any gentleman, and had a watch and a chain on which
+hung a ring--a souvenir, apparently.
+
+"I must go," he said presently.
+
+He was at the door when Coupeau recalled him to say that he must never
+pass without coming in to say, "How do you do?"
+
+Meanwhile Gervaise, who had disappeared, returned, pushing Etienne
+before her. The boy was half asleep but smiled as he rubbed his eyes.
+When he saw Lantier he stared and looked uneasily from him to Coupeau.
+
+"Do you know this gentleman?" said his mother.
+
+The child looked away and did not answer, but when his mother repeated
+the question he made a little sign that he remembered him. Lantier,
+grave and silent, stood still. When Etienne went toward him he stooped
+and kissed the child, who did not look at him but burst into tears,
+and when he was violently reproached by Coupeau he rushed away.
+
+"It is excitement," said his mother, who was herself very pale.
+
+"He is usually very good and very obedient," said Coupeau. "I have
+brought him up well, as you will find out. He will soon get used to
+you. He must learn something of life, you see, and will understand one
+of these days that people must forget and forgive, and I would cut off
+my head sooner than prevent a father from seeing his child!"
+
+He then proposed to finish the bottle of brandy. They all three drank
+together again. Lantier was quite undisturbed, and before he left he
+insisted on aiding Coupeau to shut up the shop. Then as he dusted his
+hands with his handkerchief he wished them a careless good night.
+
+"Sleep well. I am going to try and catch the omnibus. I will see you
+soon again."
+
+Lantier kept his word and was seen from that time very often in the
+shop. He came only when Coupeau was home and asked for him before he
+crossed the threshold. Then seated near the window, always wearing
+a frock coat, fresh linen and carefully shaved, he kept up a
+conversation like a man who had seen something of the world. By
+degrees Coupeau learned something of his life. For the last eight
+years he had been at the head of a hat manufactory, and when he was
+asked why he had given it up he said vaguely that he was not satisfied
+with his partner; he was a rascal, and so on.
+
+But his former position still imparted to him a certain air of
+importance. He said, also, that he was on the point of concluding
+an important matter--that certain business houses were in process of
+establishing themselves, the management of which would be virtually
+in his hands. In the meantime he had absolutely not one thing to do
+but to walk about with his hands in his pockets.
+
+Any day he pleased, however, he could start again. He had only to
+decide on some house. Coupeau did not altogether believe this tale
+and insisted that he must be doing something which he did not choose
+to tell; otherwise how did he live?
+
+The truth was that Lantier, excessively talkative in regard to other
+people's affairs, was very reticent about his own. He lied quite as
+often as he spoke the truth and would never tell where he resided.
+He said he was never at home, so it was of no use for anyone to come
+and see him.
+
+"I am very careful," he said, "in making an engagement. I do not
+choose to bind myself to a man and find, when it is too late, that
+he intends to make a slave of me. I went one Monday to Champion at
+Monrouge. That evening Champion began a political discussion. He and I
+differed entirely, and on Tuesday I threw up the situation. You can't
+blame me, I am sure, for not being willing to sell my soul and my
+convictions for seven francs per day!"
+
+It was now November. Lantier occasionally brought a bunch of violets
+to Gervaise. By degrees his visits became more frequent. He seemed
+determined to fascinate the whole house, even the _Quartier_, and
+he began by ingratiating himself with Clemence and Mme Putois, showing
+them both the greatest possible attention.
+
+These two women adored him at the end of a month. Mme Boche, whom he
+flattered by calling on her in her loge, had all sorts of pleasant
+things to say about him.
+
+As to the Lorilleuxs, they were furious when they found out who he was
+and declared that it was a sin and a disgrace for Gervaise to bring
+him into her house. But one fine day Lantier bearded them in their
+den and ordered a chain made for a lady of his acquaintance and made
+himself so agreeable that they begged him to sit down and kept him an
+hour. After this visit they expressed their astonishment that a man so
+distinguished could ever have seen anything in Wooden Legs to admire.
+By degrees, therefore, people had become accustomed to seeing him and
+no longer expressed their horror or amazement. Goujet was the only one
+who was disturbed. If Lantier came in while he was there he at once
+departed and avoided all intercourse with him.
+
+Gervaise was very unhappy. She was conscious of a returning
+inclination for Lantier, and she was afraid of herself and of him.
+She thought of him constantly; he had taken entire possession of her
+imagination. But she grew calmer as days passed on, finding that he
+never tried to see her alone and that he rarely looked at her and
+never laid the tip of his finger on her.
+
+Virginie, who seemed to read her through and through, asked her what
+she feared. Was there ever a man more respectful?
+
+But out of mischief or worse, the woman contrived to get the two into
+a corner one day and then led the conversation into a most dangerous
+direction. Lantier, in reply to some question, said in measured tones
+that his heart was dead, that he lived now only for his son. He never
+thought of Claude, who was away. He embraced Etienne every night but
+soon forgot he was in the room and amused himself with Clemence.
+
+Then Gervaise began to realize that the past was dead. Lantier had
+brought back to her the memory of Plassans and the Hotel Boncœur.
+But this faded away again, and, seeing him constantly, the past was
+absorbed in the present. She shook off these memories almost with
+disgust. Yes, it was all over, and should he ever dare to allude to
+former years she would complain to her husband.
+
+She began again to think of Goujet almost unconsciously.
+
+One morning Clemence said that the night before she had seen Lantier
+walking with a woman who had his arm. Yes, he was coming up La Rue
+Notre-Dame de Lorette; the woman was a blonde and no better than she
+should be. Clemence added that she had followed them until the woman
+reached a house where she went in. Lantier waited in the street until
+there was a window opened, which was evidently a signal, for he went
+into the house at once.
+
+Gervaise was ironing a white dress; she smiled slightly and said that
+she believed a Provencal was always crazy after women, and at night
+when Lantier appeared she was quite amused at Clemence, who at once
+attacked him. He seemed to be, on the whole, rather pleased that he
+had been seen. The person was an old friend, he said, one whom he had
+not seen for some time--a very stylish woman, in fact--and he told
+Clemence to smell of his handkerchief on which his friend had put some
+of the perfume she used. Just then Etienne came in, and his father
+became very grave and said that he was in jest--that his heart was
+dead.
+
+Gervaise nodded approval of this sentiment, but she did not speak.
+
+When spring came Lantier began to talk of moving into that
+neighborhood. He wanted a furnished, clean room. Mme Boche and
+Gervaise tried to find one for him. But they did not meet with any
+success. He was altogether too fastidious in his requirements. Every
+evening at the Coupeaus' he wished he could find people like
+themselves who would take a lodger.
+
+"You are very comfortable here, I am sure," he would say regularly.
+
+Finally one night when he had uttered this phrase, as usual, Coupeau
+cried out:
+
+"If you like this place so much why don't you stay here? We can make
+room for you."
+
+And he explained that the linen room could be so arranged that it
+would be very comfortable, and Etienne could sleep on a mattress in
+the corner.
+
+"No, no," said Lantier; "it would trouble you too much. I know that
+you have the most generous heart in the world, but I cannot impose
+upon you. Your room would be a passageway to mine, and that would not
+be agreeable to any of us."
+
+"Nonsense," said Coupeau. "Have we no invention? There are two
+windows; can't one be cut down to the floor and used as a door? In
+that case you would enter from the court and not through the shop.
+You would be by yourself, and we by ourselves."
+
+There was a long silence, broken finally by Lantier.
+
+"If this could be done," he said, "I should like it, but I am afraid
+you would find yourselves too crowded."
+
+He did not look at Gervaise as he spoke, but it was clear that he was
+only waiting for a word from her. She did not like the plan at all;
+not that the thought of Lantier living under their roof disturbed her,
+but she had no idea where she could put the linen as it came in to be
+washed and again when it was rough-dry.
+
+But Coupeau was enchanted with the plan. The rent, he said, had always
+been heavy to carry, and now they would gain twenty francs per month.
+It was not dear for him, and it would help them decidedly. He told his
+wife that she could have two great boxes made in which all the linen
+of the _Quartier_ could be piled.
+
+Gervaise still hesitated, questioning Mamma Coupeau with her eyes.
+Lantier had long since propitiated the old lady by bringing her
+gumdrops for her cough.
+
+"If we could arrange it I am sure--" said Gervaise hesitatingly.
+
+"You are too kind," remonstrated Lantier. "I really feel that it would
+be an intrusion."
+
+Coupeau flamed out. Why did she not speak up, he should like to know?
+Instead of stammering and behaving like a fool?
+
+"Etienne! Etienne!" he shouted.
+
+The boy was asleep with his head on the table. He started up.
+
+"Listen to me. Say to this gentleman, 'I wish it.' Say just those
+words and nothing more."
+
+"I wish it!" stammered Etienne, half asleep.
+
+Everybody laughed. But Lantier almost instantly resumed his solemn
+air. He pressed Coupeau's hand cordially.
+
+"I accept your proposition," he said. "It is a most friendly one,
+and I thank you in my name and in that of my child."
+
+The next morning Marescot, the owner of the house, happening to call,
+Gervaise spoke to him of the matter. At first he absolutely refused
+and was as disturbed and angry as if she had asked him to build on a
+wing for her especial accommodation. Then after a minute examination
+of the premises he ended by giving his consent, only on condition,
+however, that he should not be required to pay any portion of the
+expense, and the Coupeaus signed a paper, agreeing to put everything
+into its original condition at the expiration of their lease.
+
+That same evening Coupeau brought in a mason, a painter and a
+carpenter, all friends and boon companions of his, who would do this
+little job at night, after their day's work was over.
+
+The cutting of the door, the painting and the cleaning would come to
+about one hundred francs, and Coupeau agreed to pay them as fast as
+his tenant paid him.
+
+The next question was how to furnish the room? Gervaise left Mamma
+Coupeau's wardrobe in it. She added a table and two chairs from her
+own room. She was compelled to buy a bed and dressing table and divers
+other things, which amounted to one hundred and thirty francs. This
+she must pay for ten francs each month. So that for nearly a year they
+could derive no benefit from their new lodger.
+
+It was early in June that Lantier took possession of his new quarters.
+Coupeau had offered the night before to help him with his trunk in
+order to avoid the thirty sous for a fiacre. But the other seemed
+embarrassed and said his trunk was heavy, and it seemed as if he
+preferred to keep it a secret even now where he resided.
+
+He came about three o'clock. Coupeau was not there, and Gervaise,
+standing at her shop door, turned white as she recognized the trunk
+on the fiacre. It was their old one with which they had traveled from
+Plassans. Now it was banged and battered and strapped with cords.
+
+She saw it brought in as she had often seen it in her dreams, and she
+vaguely wondered if it were the same fiacre which had taken him and
+Adele away. Boche welcomed Lantier cordially. Gervaise stood by in
+silent bewilderment, watching them place the trunk in her lodger's
+room. Then hardly knowing what she said, she murmured:
+
+"We must take a glass of wine together----"
+
+Lantier, who was busy untying the cords on his trunk, did not look up,
+and she added:
+
+"You will join us, Monsieur Boche!"
+
+And she went for some wine and glasses. At that moment she caught
+sight of Poisson passing the door. She gave him a nod and a wink which
+he perfectly understood: it meant, when he was on duty, that he was
+offered a glass of wine. He went round by the courtyard in order not
+to be seen. Lantier never saw him without some joke in regard to his
+political convictions, which, however, had not prevented the men from
+becoming excellent friends.
+
+To one of these jests Boche now replied:
+
+"Did you know," he said, "that when the emperor was in London he was a
+policeman, and his special duty was to carry all the intoxicated women
+to the station house?"
+
+Gervaise had filled three glasses on the table. She did not care
+for any wine; she was sick at heart as she stood looking at Lantier
+kneeling on the floor by the side of the trunk. She was wild to know
+what it contained. She remembered that in one corner was a pile of
+stockings, a shirt or two and an old hat. Were those things still
+there? Was she to be confronted with those tattered relics of the
+past?
+
+Lantier did not lift the lid, however; he rose and, going to the
+table, held his glass high in his hands.
+
+"To your health, madame!" he said.
+
+And Poisson and Boche drank with him.
+
+Gervaise filled their glasses again. The three men wiped their lips
+with the backs of their hands.
+
+Then Lantier opened his trunk. It was filled with a hodgepodge of
+papers, books, old clothes and bundles of linen. He pulled out a
+saucepan, then a pair of boots, followed by a bust of Ledru Rollin
+with a broken nose, then an embroidered shirt and a pair of ragged
+pantaloons, and Gervaise perceived a mingled and odious smell of
+tobacco, leather and dust.
+
+No, the old hat was not in the left corner; in its place was a pin
+cushion, the gift of some woman. All at once the strange anxiety with
+which she had watched the opening of this trunk disappeared, and in
+its place came an intense sadness as she followed each article with
+her eyes as Lantier took them out and wondered which belonged to her
+time and which to the days when another woman filled his life.
+
+"Look here, Poisson," cried Lantier, pulling out a small book. It
+was a scurrilous attack on the emperor, printed at Brussels, entitled
+_The Amours of Napoleon III_.
+
+Poisson was aghast. He found no words with which to defend the
+emperor. It was in a book--of course, therefore, it was true. Lantier,
+with a laugh of triumph, turned away and began to pile up his books
+and papers, grumbling a little that there were no shelves on which
+to put them. Gervaise promised to buy some for him. He owned Louis
+Blanc's _Histoire de Dix Ans_, all but the first volume, which he
+had never had, Lamartine's _Les Girondins_, _The Mysteries of
+Paris_ and _The Wandering Jew_, by Eugène Sue, without counting
+a pile of incendiary volumes which he had picked up at bookstalls.
+His old newspapers he regarded with especial respect. He had collected
+them with care for years: whenever he had read an article at a cafe
+of which he approved, he bought the journal and preserved it. He
+consequently had an enormous quantity, of all dates and names, tied
+together without order or sequence.
+
+He laid them all in a corner of the room, saying as he did so:
+
+"If people would study those sheets and adopt the ideas therein,
+society would be far better organized than it now is. Your emperor
+and all his minions would come down a bit on the ladder--"
+
+Here he was interrupted by Poisson, whose red imperial and mustache
+irradiated his pale face.
+
+"And the army," he said, "what would you do with that?"
+
+Lantier became very much excited.
+
+"The army!" he cried. "I would scatter it to the four winds of
+heaven! I want the military system of the country abolished! I want
+the abolition of titles and monopolies! I want salaries equalized!
+I want liberty for everyone. Divorces, too--"
+
+"Yes; divorces, of course," interposed Boche. "That is needed in the
+cause of morality."
+
+Poisson threw back his head, ready for an argument, but Gervaise,
+who did not like discussions, interfered. She had recovered from the
+torpor into which she had been plunged by the sight of this trunk, and
+she asked the men to take another glass. Lantier was suddenly subdued
+and drank his wine, but Boche looked at Poisson uneasily.
+
+"All this talk is between ourselves, is it not?" he said to the
+policeman.
+
+Poisson did not allow him to finish: he laid his hand on his heart
+and declared that he was no spy. Their words went in at one ear and
+out at another. He had forgotten them already.
+
+Coupeau by this time appeared, and more wine was sent for. But Poisson
+dared linger no longer, and, stiff and haughty, he departed through
+the courtyard.
+
+From the very first Lantier was made thoroughly at home. Lantier had
+his separate room, private entrance and key. But he went through the
+shop almost always. The accumulation of linen disturbed Gervaise, for
+her husband never arranged the boxes he had promised, and she was
+obliged to stow it away in all sorts of places, under the bed and in
+the corner. She did not like making up Etienne's mattress late at
+night either.
+
+Goujet had spoken of sending the child to Lille to his own old master,
+who wanted apprentices. The plan pleased her, particularly as the
+boy, who was not very happy at home, was impatient to become his own
+master. But she dared not ask Lantier, who had come there to live
+ostensibly to be near his son. She felt, therefore, that it was hardly
+a good plan to send the boy away within a couple of weeks after his
+father's arrival.
+
+When, however, she did make up her mind to approach the subject he
+expressed warm approval of the idea, saying that youths were far
+better in the country than in Paris.
+
+Finally it was decided that Etienne should go, and when the morning
+of his departure arrived Lantier read his son a long lecture and then
+sent him off, and the house settled down into new habits.
+
+Gervaise became accustomed to seeing the dirty linen lying about and
+to seeing Lantier coming in and going out. He still talked with an
+important air of his business operations. He went out daily, dressed
+with the utmost care and came home, declaring that he was worn out
+with the discussions in which he had been engaged and which involved
+the gravest and most important interests.
+
+He rose about ten o'clock, took a walk if the day pleased him, and if
+it rained he sat in the shop and read his paper. He liked to be there.
+It was his delight to live surrounded by a circle of worshiping women,
+and he basked indolently in the warmth and atmosphere of ease and
+comfort, which characterized the place.
+
+At first Lantier took his meals at the restaurant at the corner, but
+after a while he dined three or four times a week with the Coupeaus
+and finally requested permission to board with them and agreed to pay
+them fifteen francs each Saturday. Thus he was regularly installed and
+was one of the family. He was seen in his shirt sleeves in the shop
+every morning, attending to any little matters or receiving orders
+from the customers. He induced Gervaise to leave her own wine merchant
+and go to a friend of his own. Then he found fault with the bread and
+sent Augustine to the Vienna bakery in a distant _faubourg_. He
+changed the grocer but kept the butcher on account of his political
+opinions.
+
+At the end of a month he had instituted a change in the cuisine.
+Everything was cooked in oil: being a Provencal, that was what he
+adored. He made the omelets himself, which were as tough as leather.
+He superintended Mamma Coupeau and insisted that the beefsteaks should
+be thoroughly cooked, until they were like the soles of an old shoe.
+He watched the salad to see that nothing went in which he did not
+like. His favorite dish was vermicelli, into which he poured half
+a bottle of oil. This he and Gervaise ate together, for the others,
+being Parisians, could not be induced to taste it.
+
+By degrees Lantier attended to all those affairs which fall to the
+share of the master of the house and to various details of their
+business, in addition. He insisted that if the five francs which the
+Lorilleux people had agreed to pay toward the support of Mamma Coupeau
+was not forthcoming they should go to law about it. In fact, ten
+francs was what they ought to pay. He himself would go and see if he
+could not make them agree to that. He went up at once and asked them
+in such a way that he returned in triumph with the ten francs. And
+Mme Lerat, too, did the same at his representation. Mamma Coupeau
+could have kissed Lantier's hands, who played the part, besides, of
+an arbiter in the quarrels between the old woman and Gervaise.
+
+The latter, as was natural, sometimes lost patience with the old
+woman, who retreated to her bed to weep. He would bluster about and
+ask if they were simpletons, to amuse people with their disagreements,
+and finally induced them to kiss and be friends once more.
+
+He expressed his mind freely in regard to Nana also. In his opinion
+she was brought up very badly, and here he was quite right, for when
+her father cuffed her her mother upheld her, and when, in her turn,
+the mother reproved, the father made a scene.
+
+Nana was delighted at this and felt herself free to do much as she
+pleased.
+
+She had started a new game at the farriery opposite. She spent entire
+days swinging on the shafts of the wagons. She concealed herself, with
+her troop of followers, at the back of the dark court, redly lit by
+the forge, and then would make sudden rushes with screams and whoops,
+followed by every child in the neighborhood, reminding one of a flock
+of martins or sparrows.
+
+Lantier was the only one whose scoldings had any effect. She listened
+to him graciously. This child of ten years of age, precocious and
+vicious, coquetted with him as if she had been a grown woman. He
+finally assumed the care of her education. He taught her to dance
+and to talk slang!
+
+Thus a year passed away. The whole neighborhood supposed Lantier to
+be a man of means--otherwise how did the Coupeaus live as they did?
+Gervaise, to be sure, still made money, but she supported two men who
+did nothing, and the shop, of course, did not make enough for that.
+The truth was that Lantier had never paid one sou, either for board
+or lodging. He said he would let it run on, and when it amounted to
+a good sum he would pay it all at once.
+
+After that Gervaise never dared to ask him for a centime. She got
+bread, wine and meat on credit; bills were running up everywhere, for
+their expenditures amounted to three and four francs every day. She
+had never paid anything, even a trifle on account, to the man from
+whom she had bought her furniture or to Coupeau's three friends who
+had done the work in Lantier's room. The tradespeople were beginning
+to grumble and treated her with less politeness.
+
+But she seemed to be insensible to this; she chose the most expensive
+things, having thrown economy to the winds, since she had given up
+paying for things at once. She always intended, however, to pay
+eventually and had a vague notion of earning hundreds of francs daily
+in some extraordinary way by which she could pay all these people.
+
+About the middle of summer Clemence departed, for there was not enough
+work for two women; she had waited for her money for some weeks.
+Lantier and Coupeau were quite undisturbed, however. They were in the
+best of spirits and seemed to be growing fat over the ruined business.
+
+In the _Quartier_ there was a vast deal of gossip. Everybody
+wondered as to the terms on which Lantier and Gervaise now stood. The
+Lorilleuxs viciously declared that Gervaise would be glad enough to
+resume her old relations with Lantier but that he would have nothing
+to do with her, for she had grown old and ugly. The Boche people
+took a different view, but while everyone declared that the whole
+arrangement was a most improper one, they finally accepted it as
+quite a matter of course and altogether natural.
+
+It is quite possible there were other homes which were quite as open
+to invidious remarks within a stone's throw, but these Coupeaus, as
+their neighbors said, were good, kind people. Lantier was especially
+ingratiating. It was decided, therefore, to let things go their own
+way undisturbed.
+
+Gervaise lived quietly indifferent to, and possibly entirely
+unsuspicious of, all these scandals. By and by it came to pass that
+her husband's own people looked on her as utterly heartless. Mme Lerat
+made her appearance every evening, and she treated Lantier as if he
+were utterly irresistible, into whose arms any and every woman would
+be only too glad to fall. An actual league seemed to be forming
+against Gervaise: all the women insisted on giving her a lover.
+
+But she saw none of these fascinations in him. He had changed,
+unquestionably, and the external changes were all in his favor. He
+wore a frock coat and had acquired a certain polish. But she who knew
+him so well looked down into his soul through his eyes and shuddered
+at much she saw there. She could not understand what others saw in him
+to admire. And she said so one day to Virginie. Then Mme Lerat and
+Virginie vied with each other in the stories they told of Clemence and
+himself--what they did and said whenever her back was turned--and now
+they were sure, since she had left the establishment, that he went
+regularly to see her.
+
+"Well, what of it?" asked Gervaise, her voice trembling. "What have
+I to do with that?"
+
+But she looked into Virginie's dark brown eyes, which were specked
+with gold and emitted sparks as do those of cats. But the woman put
+on a stupid look as she answered:
+
+"Why, nothing, of course; only I should think you would advise him
+not to have anything to do with such a person."
+
+Lantier was gradually changing his manner to Gervaise. Now when he
+shook hands with her he held her fingers longer than was necessary.
+He watched her incessantly and fixed his bold eyes upon her. He leaned
+over her so closely that she felt his breath on her cheek. But one
+evening, being alone with her, he caught her in both arms. At that
+moment Goujet entered. Gervaise wrenched herself free, and the three
+exchanged a few words as if nothing had happened. Goujet was very pale
+and seemed embarrassed, supposing that he had intruded upon them and
+that she had pushed Lantier aside only because she did not choose to
+be embraced in public.
+
+The next day Gervaise was miserable, unhappy and restless. She could
+not iron a handkerchief. She wanted to see Goujet and tell him just
+what had happened, but ever since Etienne had gone to Lille she had
+given up going to the forge, as she was quite unable to face the
+knowing winks with which his comrades received her. But this day she
+determined to go, and, taking an empty basket on her arms, she started
+off, pretending that she was going with skirts to some customers in
+La Rue des Portes-Blanches.
+
+Goujet seemed to be expecting her, for she met him loitering on the
+corner.
+
+"Ah," he said with a wan smile, "you are going home, I presume?"
+
+He hardly knew what he was saying, and they both turned toward
+Montmartre without another word. They merely wished to go away from
+the forge. They passed several manufactories and soon found themselves
+with an open field before them. A goat was tethered near by and
+bleating as it browsed, and a dead tree was crumbling away in the
+hot sun.
+
+"One might almost think oneself in the country," murmured Gervaise.
+
+They took a seat under the dead tree. The clearstarcher set the basket
+down at her feet. Before them stretched the heights of Montmartre,
+with its rows of yellow and gray houses amid clumps of trees, and
+when they threw back their heads a little they saw the whole sky
+above, clear and cloudless, but the sunlight dazzled them, and they
+looked over to the misty outlines of the _faubourg_ and watched the
+smoke rising from tall chimneys in regular puffs, indicating the
+machinery which impelled it. These great sighs seemed to relieve
+their own oppressed breasts.
+
+"Yes," said Gervaise after a long silence. "I have been on a long
+walk, and I came out--"
+
+She stopped. After having been so eager for an explanation she found
+herself unable to speak and overwhelmed with shame. She knew that he
+as well as herself had come to that place with the wish and intention
+of speaking on one especial subject, and yet neither of them dared to
+allude to it. The occurrence of the previous evening weighed on both
+their souls.
+
+Then with a heart torn with anguish and with tears in her eyes, she
+told him of the death of Mme Bijard, who had breathed her last that
+morning after suffering unheard-of agonies.
+
+"It was caused by a kick of Bijard's," she said in her low, soft
+voice; "some internal injury. For three days she has suffered
+frightfully. Why are not such men punished? I suppose, though, if the
+law undertook to punish all the wretches who kill their wives that it
+would have too much to do. After all, one kick more or less: what does
+it matter in the end? And this poor creature, in her desire to save
+her husband from the scaffold, declared she had fallen over a tub."
+
+Goujet did not speak. He sat pulling up the tufts of grass.
+
+"It is not a fortnight," continued Gervaise, "since she weaned her
+last baby, and here is that child Lalie left to take care of two
+mites. She is not eight years old but as quiet and sensible as if
+she were a grown woman, and her father kicks and strikes her too.
+Poor little soul! There are some persons in this world who seem
+born to suffer."
+
+Goujet looked at her and then said suddenly, with trembling lips:
+
+"You made me suffer yesterday."
+
+Gervaise clasped her hands imploringly, and he continued:
+
+"I knew of course how it must end; only you should not have allowed me
+to think--"
+
+He could not finish. She started up, seeing what his convictions were.
+She cried out:
+
+"You are wrong! I swear to you that you are wrong! He was going to
+kiss me, but his lips did not touch me, and it is the very first time
+that he made the attempt. Believe me, for I swear--on all that I hold
+most sacred--that I am telling you the truth."
+
+But the blacksmith shook his head. He knew that women did not always
+tell the truth on such points. Gervaise then became very grave.
+
+"You know me well," she said; "you know that I am no liar. I again
+repeat that Lantier and I are friends. We shall never be anything
+more, for if that should ever come to pass I should regard myself
+as the vilest of the vile and should be unworthy of the friendship
+of a man like yourself." Her face was so honest, her eyes were so
+clear and frank, that he could do no less than believe her. Once more
+he breathed freely. He held her hand for the first time. Both were
+silent. White clouds sailed slowly above their heads with the majesty
+of swans. The goat looked at them and bleated piteously, eager to be
+released, and they stood hand in hand on that bleak slope with tears
+in their eyes.
+
+"Your mother likes me no longer," said Gervaise in a low voice. "Do
+not say no; how can it be otherwise? We owe you so much money."
+
+He roughly shook her arm in his eagerness to check the words on her
+lips; he would not hear her. He tried to speak, but his throat was
+too dry; he choked a little and then he burst out:
+
+"Listen to me," he cried; "I have long wished to say something to you.
+You are not happy. My mother says things are all going wrong with you,
+and," he hesitated, "we must go away together and at once."
+
+She looked at him, not understanding him but impressed by this abrupt
+declaration of a love from him, who had never before opened his lips
+in regard to it.
+
+"What do you mean?" she said.
+
+"I mean," he answered without looking in her face, "that we two can
+go away and live in Belgium. It is almost the same to me as home, and
+both of us could get work and live comfortably."
+
+The color came to her face, which she would have hidden on his
+shoulder to hide her shame and confusion. He was a strange fellow to
+propose an elopement. It was like a book and like the things she heard
+of in high society. She had often seen and known of the workmen about
+her making love to married women, but they did not think of running
+away with them.
+
+"Ah, Monsieur Goujet!" she murmured, but she could say no more.
+
+"Yes," he said, "we two would live all by ourselves."
+
+But as her self-possession returned she refused with firmness.
+
+"It is impossible," she said, "and it would be very wrong. I am
+married and I have children. I know that you are fond of me, and I
+love you too much to allow you to commit any such folly as you are
+talking of, and this would be an enormous folly. No; we must live on
+as we are. We respect each other now. Let us continue to do so. That
+is a great deal and will help us over many a roughness in our paths.
+And when we try to do right we are sure of a reward."
+
+He shook his head as he listened to her, but he felt she was right.
+Suddenly he snatched her in his arms and kissed her furiously once and
+then dropped her and turned abruptly away. She was not angry, but the
+locksmith trembled from head to foot. He began to gather some of the
+wild daisies, not knowing what to do with his hands, and tossed them
+into her empty basket. This occupation amused him and tranquillized
+him. He broke off the head of the flowers and, when he missed his
+mark and they fell short of the basket, laughed aloud.
+
+Gervaise sat with her back against the tree, happy and calm. And when
+she set forth on her walk home her basket was full of daisies, and
+she was talking of Etienne.
+
+In reality Gervaise was more afraid of Lantier than she was willing
+to admit even to herself. She was fully determined never to allow
+the smallest familiarity, but she was afraid that she might yield
+to his persuasions, for she well knew the weakness and amiability of
+her nature and how hard it was for her to persist in any opposition
+to anyone.
+
+Lantier, however, did not put this determination on her part to
+the test. He was often alone with her now and was always quiet and
+respectful. Coupeau declared to everyone that Lantier was a true
+friend. There was no nonsense about him; he could be relied upon
+always and in all emergencies. And he trusted him thoroughly, he
+declared. When they went out together--the three--on Sundays he bade
+his wife and Lantier walk arm in arm, while he mounted guard behind,
+ready to cuff the ears of anyone who ventured on a disrespectful
+glance, a sneer or a wink.
+
+He laughed good-naturedly before Lantier's face, told him he put on
+a great many airs with his coats and his books, but he liked him in
+spite of them. They understood each other, he said, and a man's liking
+for another man is more solid and enduring than his love for a woman.
+
+Coupeau and Lantier made the money fly. Lantier was continually
+borrowing money from Gervaise--ten francs, twenty francs--whenever
+he knew there was money in the house. It was always because he was in
+pressing need for some business matter. But still on those same days
+he took Coupeau off with him and at some distant restaurant ordered
+and devoured such dishes as they could not obtain at home, and these
+dishes were washed down by bottle after bottle of wine.
+
+Coupeau would have preferred to get tipsy without the food, but he
+was impressed by the elegance and experience of his friend, who found
+on the carte so many extraordinary sauces. He had never seen a man
+like him, he declared, so dainty and so difficult. He wondered if all
+southerners were the same as he watched him discussing the dishes with
+the waiter and sending away a dish that was too salty or had too much
+pepper.
+
+Neither could he endure a draft: his skin was all blue if a door was
+left open, and he made no end of a row until it was closed again.
+
+Lantier was not wasteful in certain ways, for he never gave a
+_garcon_ more than two sous after he had served a meal that cost
+some seven or eight francs.
+
+They never alluded to these dinners the next morning at their simple
+breakfast with Gervaise. Naturally people cannot frolic and work, too,
+and since Lantier had become a member of his household Coupeau had
+never lifted a tool. He knew every drinking shop for miles around and
+would sit and guzzle deep into the night, not always pleased to find
+himself deserted by Lantier, who never was known to be overcome by
+liquor.
+
+About the first of November Coupeau turned over a new leaf; he
+declared he was going to work the next day, and Lantier thereupon
+preached a little sermon, declaring that labor ennobled man, and
+in the morning arose before it was light to accompany his friend to
+the shop, as a mark of the respect he felt. But when they reached a
+wineshop on the corner they entered to take a glass merely to cement
+good resolutions.
+
+Near the counter they beheld Bibi-la-Grillade smoking his pipe with
+a sulky air.
+
+"What is the matter, Bibi?" cried Coupeau.
+
+"Nothing," answered his comrade, "except that I got my walking ticket
+yesterday. Perdition seize all masters!" he added fiercely.
+
+And Bibi accepted a glass of liquor. Lantier defended the masters.
+They were not so bad after all; then, too, how were the men to get
+along without them? "To be sure," continued Lantier, "I manage pretty
+well, for I don't have much to do with them myself!"
+
+"Come, my boy," he added, turning to Coupeau; "we shall be late if
+we don't look out."
+
+Bibi went out with them. Day was just breaking, gray and cloudy. It
+had rained the night before and was damp and warm. The street lamps
+had just been extinguished. There was one continued tramp of men going
+to their work.
+
+Coupeau, with his bag of tools on his shoulder, shuffled along; his
+footsteps had long since lost their ring.
+
+"Bibi," he said, "come with me; the master told me to bring a comrade
+if I pleased."
+
+"It won't be me then," answered Bibi. "I wash my hands of them all.
+No more masters for me, I tell you! But I dare say Mes-Bottes would
+be glad of the offer."
+
+And as they reached the Assommoir they saw Mes-Bottes within.
+Notwithstanding the fact that it was daylight, the gas was blazing
+in the Assommoir. Lantier remained outside and told Coupeau to make
+haste, as they had only ten minutes.
+
+"Do you think I will work for your master?" cried Mes-Bottes. "He is
+the greatest tyrant in the kingdom. No, I should rather suck my thumbs
+for a year. You won't stay there, old man! No, you won't stay there
+three days, now I tell you!"
+
+"Are you in earnest?" asked Coupeau uneasily.
+
+"Yes, I am in earnest. You can't speak--you can't move. Your nose
+is held close to the grindstone all the time. He watches you every
+moment. If you drink a drop he says you are tipsy and makes no end
+of a row!"
+
+"Thanks for the warning. I will try this one day, and if the master
+bothers me I will just tell him what I think of him and turn on my
+heel and walk out."
+
+Coupeau shook his comrade's hand and turned to depart, much to the
+disgust of Mes-Bottes, who angrily asked if the master could not wait
+five minutes. He could not go until he had taken a drink. Lantier
+entered to join in, and Mes-Bottes stood there with his hat on the
+back of his head, shabby, dirty and staggering, ordering Father
+Colombe to pour out the glasses and not to cheat.
+
+At that moment Goujet and Lorilleux were seen going by. Mes-Bottes
+shouted to them to come in, but they both refused--Goujet saying he
+wanted nothing, and the other, as he hugged a little box of gold
+chains close to his heart, that he was in a hurry.
+
+"Milksops!" muttered Mes-Bottes. "They had best pass their lives in
+the corner by the fire!"
+
+Returning to the counter, he renewed his attack on Father Colombe,
+whom he accused of adulterating his liquors.
+
+It was now bright daylight, and the proprietor of the Assommoir began
+to extinguish the lights. Coupeau made excuses for his brother-in-law,
+who, he said, could never drink; it was not his fault, poor fellow!
+He approved, too, of Goujet, declaring that it was a good thing never
+to be thirsty. Again he made a move to depart and go to his work when
+Lantier, with his dictatorial air, reminded him that he had not paid
+his score and that he could not go off in that way, even if it were
+to his duty.
+
+"I am sick of the words 'work' and 'duty,'" muttered Mes-Bottes.
+
+They all paid for their drinks with the exception of Bibi-la-Grillade,
+who stooped toward the ear of Father Colombe and whispered a few
+words. The latter shook his head, whereupon Mes-Bottes burst into a
+torrent of invectives, but Colombe stood in impassive silence, and
+when there was a lull in the storm he said:
+
+"Let your friends pay for you then--that is a very simple thing to
+do."
+
+By this time Mes-Bottes was what is properly called howling drunk, and
+as he staggered away from the counter he struck the bag of tools which
+Coupeau had over his shoulder.
+
+"You look like a peddler with his pack or a humpback. Put it down!"
+
+Coupeau hesitated a moment, and then slowly and deliberately, as if he
+had arrived at a decision after mature deliberation, he laid his bag
+on the ground.
+
+"It is too late to go this morning. I will wait until after breakfast
+now. I will tell him my wife was sick. Listen, Father Colombe, I will
+leave my bag of tools under this bench and come for them this
+afternoon."
+
+Lantier assented to this arrangement. Of course work was a good thing,
+but friends and good company were better; and the four men stood,
+first on one foot and then on the other, for more than an hour, and
+then they had another drink all round. After that a game of billiards
+was proposed, and they went noisily down the street to the nearest
+billiard room, which did not happen to please the fastidious Lantier,
+who, however, soon recovered his good humor under the effect of the
+admiration excited in the minds of his friends by his play, which
+was really very extraordinary.
+
+When the hour arrived for breakfast Coupeau had an idea.
+
+"Let us go and find Bec Sali. I know where he works. We will make him
+breakfast with us."
+
+The idea was received with applause. The party started forth. A fine
+drizzling rain was now falling, but they were too warm within to mind
+this light sprinkling on their shoulders.
+
+Coupeau took them to a factory where his friend worked and at the door
+gave two sous to a small boy to go up and find Bec Sali and to tell
+him that his wife was very sick and had sent for him.
+
+Bec Sali quickly appeared, not in the least disturbed, as he suspected
+a joke.
+
+"Aha!" he said as he saw his friend. "I knew it!" They went to a
+restaurant and ordered a famous repast of pigs' feet, and they sat
+and sucked the bones and talked about their various employers.
+
+"Will you believe," said Bec Sali, "that mine has had the brass to
+hang up a bell? Does he think we are slaves to run when he rings it?
+Never was he so mistaken--"
+
+"I am obliged to leave you!" said Coupeau, rising at last with an
+important air. "I promised my wife to go to work today, and I leave
+you with the greatest reluctance."
+
+The others protested and entreated, but he seemed so decided that they
+all accompanied him to the Assommoir to get his tools. He pulled out
+the bag from under the bench and laid it at his feet while they all
+took another drink. The clock struck one, and Coupeau kicked his bag
+under the bench again. He would go tomorrow to the factory; one day
+really did not make much difference.
+
+The rain had ceased, and one of the men proposed a little walk on the
+boulevards to stretch their legs. The air seemed to stupefy them, and
+they loitered along with their arms swinging at their sides, without
+exchanging a word. When they reached the wineshop on the corner of La
+Rue des Poissonniers they turned in mechanically. Lantier led the way
+into a small room divided from the public one by windows only. This
+room was much affected by Lantier, who thought it more stylish by far
+than the public one. He called for a newspaper, spread it out and
+examined it with a heavy frown. Coupeau and Mes-Bottes played a game
+of cards, while wine and glasses occupied the center of the table.
+
+"What is the news?" asked Bibi.
+
+Lantier did not reply instantly, but presently, as the others emptied
+their glasses, he began to read aloud an account of a frightful
+murder, to which they listened with eager interest. Then ensued a hot
+discussion and argument as to the probable motives for the murder.
+
+By this time the wine was exhausted, and they called for more. About
+five all except Lantier were in a state of beastly intoxication, and
+he found them so disgusting that, as usual, he made his escape without
+his comrades noticing his defection.
+
+Lantier walked about a little and then, when he felt all right, went
+home and told Gervaise that her husband was with his friends. Coupeau
+did not make his appearance for two days. Rumors were brought in that
+he had been seen in one place and then in another, and always alone.
+His comrades had apparently deserted him. Gervaise shrugged her
+shoulders with a resigned air.
+
+"Good heavens!" she said. "What a way to live!" She never thought of
+hunting him up. Indeed, on the afternoon of the third day, when she
+saw him through the window of a wineshop, she turned back and would
+not pass the door. She sat up for him, however, and listened for his
+step or the sound of his hand fumbling at the lock.
+
+The next morning he came in, only to begin the same thing at night
+again. This went on for a week, and at last Gervaise went to the
+Assommoir to make inquiries. Yes, he had been there a number of times,
+but no one knew where he was just then. Gervaise picked up the bag
+of tools and carried them home.
+
+Lantier, seeing that Gervaise was out of spirits, proposed that she
+should go with him to a cafe concert. She refused at first, being
+in no mood for laughing; otherwise she would have consented, for
+Lantier's proposal seemed to be prompted by the purest friendliness.
+He seemed really sorry for her trouble and, indeed, assumed an
+absolutely paternal air.
+
+Coupeau had never stayed away like this before, and she continually
+found herself going to the door and looking up and down the street.
+She could not keep to her work but wandered restlessly from place
+to place. Had Coupeau broken a limb? Had he fallen into the water?
+She did not think she could care so very much if he were killed, if
+this uncertainty were over, if she only knew what she had to expect.
+But it was very trying to live in this suspense.
+
+Finally when the gas was lit and Lantier renewed his proposition of
+the cafe she consented. After all, why should she not go? Why should
+she refuse all pleasures because her husband chose to behave in this
+disgraceful way? If he would not come in she would go out.
+
+They hurried through their dinner, and as she went out with Lantier
+at eight o'clock Gervaise begged Nana and Mamma Coupeau to go to bed
+early. The shop was closed, and she gave the key to Mme Boche, telling
+her that if Coupeau came in it would be as well to look out for the
+lights.
+
+Lantier stood whistling while she gave these directions. Gervaise
+wore her silk dress, and she smiled as they walked down the street
+in alternate shadow and light from the shopwindows.
+
+The cafe concert was on the Boulevard de Rochechouart. It had once
+been a cafe and had had a concert room built on of rough planks.
+
+Over the door was a row of glass globes brilliantly illuminated.
+Long placards, nailed on wood, were standing quite out in the street
+by the side of the gutter.
+
+"Here we are!" said Lantier. "Mademoiselle Amanda makes her debut
+tonight."
+
+Bibi-la-Grillade was reading the placard. Bibi had a black eye, as if
+he had been fighting.
+
+"Hallo!" cried Lantier. "How are you? Where is Coupeau? Have you lost
+him?"
+
+"Yes, since yesterday. We had a little fight with a waiter at Baquets.
+He wanted us to pay twice for what we had, and somehow Coupeau and I
+got separated, and I have not seen him since."
+
+And Bibi gave a great yawn. He was in a disgraceful state of
+intoxication. He looked as if he had been rolling in the gutter.
+
+"And you know nothing of my husband?" asked Gervaise.
+
+"No, nothing. I think, though, he went off with a coachman."
+
+Lantier and Gervaise passed a very agreeable evening at the cafe
+concert, and when the doors were closed at eleven they went home in a
+sauntering sort of fashion. They were in no hurry, and the night was
+fair, though a little cool. Lantier hummed the air which Amanda had
+sung, and Gervaise added the chorus. The room had been excessively
+warm, and she had drunk several glasses of wine.
+
+She expressed a great deal of indignation at Mlle Amanda's costume.
+How did she dare face all those men, dressed like that? But her skin
+was beautiful, certainly, and she listened with considerable curiosity
+to all that Lantier could tell her about the woman.
+
+"Everybody is asleep," said Gervaise after she had rung the bell
+three times.
+
+The door was finally opened, but there was no light. She knocked at
+the door of the Boche quarters and asked for her key.
+
+The sleepy concierge muttered some unintelligible words, from which
+Gervaise finally gathered that Coupeau had been brought in by Poisson
+and that the key was in the door.
+
+Gervaise stood aghast at the disgusting sight that met her eyes as
+she entered the room where Coupeau lay wallowing on the floor.
+
+She shuddered and turned away. This sight annihilated every ray of
+sentiment remaining in her heart.
+
+"What am I to do?" she said piteously. "I can't stay here!"
+
+Lantier snatched her hand.
+
+"Gervaise," he said, "listen to me."
+
+But she understood him and drew hastily back.
+
+"No, no! Leave me, Auguste. I can manage."
+
+But Lantier would not obey her. He put his arm around her waist and
+pointed to her husband as he lay snoring, with his mouth wide open.
+
+"Leave me!" said Gervaise, imploringly, and she pointed to the room
+where her mother-in-law and Nana slept.
+
+"You will wake them!" she said. "You would not shame me before my
+child? Pray go!"
+
+He said no more but slowly and softly kissed her on her ear, as
+he had so often teased her by doing in those old days. Gervaise
+shivered, and her blood was stirred to madness in her veins.
+
+"What does that beast care?" she thought. "It is his fault," she
+murmured; "all his fault. He sends me from his room!"
+
+And as Lantier drew her toward his door Nana's face appeared for
+a moment at the window which lit her little cabinet.
+
+The mother did not see the child, who stood in her nightdress, pale
+with sleep. She looked at her father as he lay and then watched her
+mother disappear in Lantier's room. She was perfectly grave, but
+in her eyes burned the sensual curiosity of premature vice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+CLOUDS IN THE HORIZON
+
+
+That winter Mamma Coupeau was very ill with an asthmatic attack,
+which she always expected in the month of December.
+
+The poor woman suffered much, and the depression of her spirits was
+naturally very great. It must be confessed that there was nothing very
+gay in the aspect of the room where she slept. Between her bed and
+that of the little girl there was just room for a chair. The paper
+hung in strips from the wall. Through a round window near the ceiling
+came a dreary gray light. There was little ventilation in the room,
+which made it especially unfit for the old woman, who at night, when
+Nana was there and she could hear her breathe, did not complain, but
+when left alone during the day, moaned incessantly, rolling her head
+about on her pillow.
+
+"Ah," she said, "how unhappy I am! It is the same as a prison. I wish
+I were dead!"
+
+And as soon as a visitor came in--Virginie or Mme Boche--she poured
+out her grievances. "I should not suffer so much among strangers.
+I should like sometimes a cup of tisane, but I can't get it; and
+Nana--that child whom I have raised from the cradle--disappears in the
+morning and never shows her face until night, when she sleeps right
+through and never once asks me how I am or if she can do anything for
+me. It will soon be over, and I really believe this clearstarcher
+would smother me herself--if she were not afraid of the law!"
+
+Gervaise, it is true, was not as gentle and sweet as she had been.
+Everything seemed to be going wrong with her, and she had lost heart
+and patience together. Mamma Coupeau had overheard her saying that
+she was really a great burden. This naturally cut her to the heart,
+and when she saw her eldest daughter, Mme Lerat, she wept piteously
+and declared that she was being starved to death, and when these
+complaints drew from her daughter's pocket a little silver, she
+expended it in dainties.
+
+She told the most preposterous tales to Mme Lerat about Gervaise--of
+her new finery and of cakes and delicacies eaten in the corner and
+many other things of infinitely more consequence. Then in a little
+while she turned against the Lorilleuxs and talked of them in the most
+bitter manner. At the height of her illness it so happened that her
+two daughters met one afternoon at her bedside. Their mother made a
+motion to them to come closer. Then she went on to tell them, between
+paroxysms of coughing, that her son came home dead drunk the night
+before and that she was absolutely certain that Gervaise spent the
+night in Lantier's room. "It is all the more disgusting," she added,
+"because I am certain that Nana heard what was going on quite as well
+as I did."
+
+The two women did not appear either shocked or surprised.
+
+"It is none of our business," said Mme Lorilleux. "If Coupeau does not
+choose to take any notice of her conduct it is not for us to do so."
+
+All the neighborhood were soon informed of the condition of things by
+her two sisters-in-law, who declared they entered her doors only on
+their mother's account, who, poor thing, was compelled to live amid
+these abominations.
+
+Everyone accused Gervaise now of having perverted poor Lantier. "Men
+will be men," they said; "surely you can't expect them to turn a cold
+shoulder to women who throw themselves at their heads. She has no
+possible excuse; she is a disgrace to the whole street!"
+
+The Lorilleuxs invited Nana to dinner that they might question her,
+but as soon as they began the child looked absolutely stupid, and
+they could extort nothing from her.
+
+Amid this sudden and fierce indignation Gervaise lived--indifferent,
+dull and stupid. At first she loathed herself, and if Coupeau laid
+his hand on her she shivered and ran away from him. But by degrees
+she became accustomed to it. Her indolence had become excessive,
+and she only wished to be quiet and comfortable.
+
+After all, she asked herself, why should she care? If her lover
+and her husband were satisfied, why should she not be too? So
+the household went on much as usual to all appearance. In reality,
+whenever Coupeau came in tipsy, she left and went to Lantier's room
+to sleep. She was not led there by passion or affection; it was simply
+that it was more comfortable. She was very like a cat in her choice
+of soft, clean places.
+
+Mamma Coupeau never dared to speak out openly to the clearstarcher,
+but after a dispute she was unsparing in her hints and allusions. The
+first time Gervaise fixed her eyes on her and heard all she had to say
+in profound silence. Then without seeming to speak of herself, she
+took occasion to say not long afterward that when a woman was married
+to a man who was drinking himself to death a woman was very much to
+be pitied and by no means to blame if she looked for consolation
+elsewhere.
+
+Another time, when taunted by the old woman, she went still further
+and declared that Lantier was as much her husband as was Coupeau--that
+he was the father of two of her children. She talked a little twaddle
+about the laws of nature, and a shrewd observer would have seen that
+she--parrotlike--was repeating the words that some other person had
+put into her mouth. Besides, what were her neighbors doing all about
+her? They were not so extremely respectable that they had the right
+to attack her. And then she took house after house and showed her
+mother-in-law that while apparently so deaf to gossip she yet knew
+all that was going on about her. Yes, she knew--and now seemed to
+gloat over that which once had shocked and revolted her.
+
+"It is none of my business, I admit," she cried; "let each person
+live as he pleases, according to his own light, and let everybody
+else alone."
+
+One day when Mamma Coupeau spoke out more clearly she said with
+compressed lips:
+
+"Now look here, you are flat on your back and you take advantage of
+that fact. I have never said a word to you about your own life, but
+I know it all the same--and it was atrocious! That is all! I am not
+going into particulars, but remember, you had best not sit in
+judgment on me!"
+
+The old woman was nearly suffocated with rage and her cough.
+
+The next day Goujet came for his mother's wash while Gervaise was
+out. Mamma Coupeau called him into her room and kept him for an hour.
+She read the young man's heart; she knew that his suspicions made
+him miserable. And in revenge for something that had displeased
+her she told him the truth with many sighs and tears, as if her
+daughter-in-law's infamous conduct was a bitter blow to her.
+
+When Goujet left her room he was deadly pale and looked ten years
+older than when he went in. The old woman had, too, the additional
+pleasure of telling Gervaise on her return that Mme Goujet had sent
+word that her linen must be returned to her at once, ironed or
+unironed. And she was so animated and comparatively amiable that
+Gervaise scented the truth and knew instinctively what she had done
+and what she was to expect with Goujet. Pale and trembling, she piled
+the linen neatly in a basket and set forth to see Mme Goujet. Years
+had passed since she had paid her friends one penny. The debt still
+stood at four hundred and twenty-five francs. Each time she took the
+money for her washing she spoke of being pressed just at that time.
+It was a great mortification for her.
+
+Coupeau was, however, less scrupulous and said with a laugh that if
+she kissed her friend occasionally in the corner it would keep things
+straight and pay him well. Then Gervaise, with eyes blazing with
+indignation, would ask if he really meant that. Had he fallen so low?
+Nor should he speak of Goujet in that way in her presence.
+
+Every time she took home the linen of these former friends she
+ascended the stairs with a sick heart.
+
+"Ah, it is you, is it?" said Mme Goujet coldly as she opened the door.
+Gervaise entered with some hesitation; she did not dare attempt to
+excuse herself. She was no longer punctual to the hour or the
+day--everything about her was becoming perfectly disorderly.
+
+"For one whole week," resumed the lace mender, "you have kept me
+waiting. You have told me falsehood after falsehood. You have sent
+your apprentice to tell me that there was an accident--something had
+been spilled on the shirts, they would come the next day, and so on.
+I have been unnecessarily annoyed and worried, besides losing much
+time. There is no sense in it! Now what have you brought home? Are
+the shirts here which you have had for a month and the skirt which
+was missing last week?"
+
+"Yes," said Gervaise, almost inaudibly; "yes, the skirt is here.
+Look at it!"
+
+But Mme Goujet cried out in indignation.
+
+That skirt did not belong to her, and she would not have it. This was
+the crowning touch, if her things were to be changed in this way. She
+did not like other people's things.
+
+"And the shirts? Where are they? Lost, I suppose. Very well, settle it
+as you please, but these shirts I must have tomorrow morning!"
+
+There was a long silence. Gervaise was much disturbed by seeing that
+the door of Goujet's room was wide open. He was there, she was sure,
+and listening to all these reproaches which she knew to be deserved
+and to which she could not reply. She was very quiet and submissive
+and laid the linen on the bed as quickly as possible.
+
+Mme Goujet began to examine the pieces.
+
+"Well! Well!" she said. "No one can praise your washing nowadays.
+There is not a piece here that is not dirtied by the iron. Look at
+this shirt: it is scorched, and the buttons are fairly torn off by the
+root. Everything comes back--that comes at all, I should say--with the
+buttons off. Look at that sack: the dirt is all in it. No, no, I can't
+pay for such washing as this!"
+
+She stopped talking--while she counted the pieces. Then she exclaimed:
+
+"Two pairs of stockings, six towels and one napkin are missing from
+this week. You are laughing at me, it seems. Now, just understand,
+I tell you to bring back all you have, ironed or not ironed. If in
+an hour your woman is not here with the rest I have done with you,
+Madame Coupeau!"
+
+At this moment Goujet coughed. Gervaise started. How could she bear
+being treated in this way before him? And she stood confused and
+silent, waiting for the soiled clothes.
+
+Mme Goujet had taken her place and her work by the window.
+
+"And the linen?" said Gervaise timidly.
+
+"Many thanks," said the old woman. "There is nothing this week."
+
+Gervaise turned pale; it was clear that Mme Goujet meant to take away
+her custom from her. She sank into a chair. She made no attempt at
+excuses; she only asked a question.
+
+"Is Monsieur Goujet ill?"
+
+"He is not well; at least he has just come in and is lying down to
+rest a little."
+
+Mme Goujet spoke very slowly, almost solemnly, her pale face encircled
+by her white cap, and wearing, as usual, her plain black dress.
+
+And she explained that they were obliged to economize very closely.
+In future she herself would do their washing. Of course Gervaise must
+know that this would not be necessary had she and her husband paid
+their debt to her son. But of course they would submit; they would
+never think of going to law about it. While she spoke of the debt her
+needle moved rapidly to and fro in the delicate meshes of her work.
+
+"But," continued Mme Goujet, "if you were to deny yourself a little
+and be careful and prudent, you could soon discharge your debt to us;
+you live too well; you spend too freely. Were you to give us only ten
+francs each month--"
+
+She was interrupted by her son, who called impatiently, "Mother! Come
+here, will you?"
+
+When she returned she changed the conversation. Her son had
+undoubtedly begged her to say no more about this money to Gervaise. In
+spite of her evident determination to avoid this subject, she returned
+to it again in about ten minutes. She knew from the beginning just
+what would happen. She had said so at the time, and all had turned out
+precisely as she had prophesied. The tinworker had drunk up the shop
+and had left his wife to bear the load by herself. If her son had
+taken her advice he would never have lent the money. His marriage
+had fallen through, and he had lost his spirits. She grew very angry
+as she spoke and finally accused Gervaise openly of having, with her
+husband, deliberately conspired to cheat her simplehearted son.
+
+"Many women," she exclaimed, "played the parts of hypocrites and
+prudes for years and were found out at the last!"
+
+"Mother! Mother!" called Goujet peremptorily.
+
+She rose and when she returned said:
+
+"Go in; he wants to see you."
+
+Gervaise obeyed, leaving the door open behind her. She found the room
+sweet and fresh looking, like that of a young girl, with its simple
+pictures and white curtains.
+
+Goujet, crushed by what he had heard from Mamma Coupeau, lay at full
+length on the bed with pale face and haggard eyes.
+
+"Listen!" he said. "You must not mind my mother's words; she does not
+understand. You do not owe me anything."
+
+He staggered to his feet and stood leaning against the bed and looking
+at her.
+
+"Are you ill?" she said nervously.
+
+"No, not ill," he answered, "but sick at heart. Sick when I remember
+what you said and see the truth. Leave me. I cannot bear to look at
+you."
+
+And he waved her away, not angrily, but with great decision. She went
+out without a word, for she had nothing to say. In the next room she
+took up her basket and stood still a moment; Mme Goujet did not look
+up, but she said:
+
+"Remember, I want my linen at once, and when that is all sent back
+to me we will settle the account."
+
+"Yes," answered Gervaise. And she closed the door, leaving behind her
+all that sweet odor and cleanliness on which she had once placed so
+high a value. She returned to the shop with her head bowed down and
+looking neither to the right nor the left.
+
+Mother Coupeau was sitting by the fire, having left her bed for the
+first time. Gervaise said nothing to her--not a word of reproach or
+congratulation. She felt deadly tired; all her bones ached, as if she
+had been beaten. She thought life very hard and wished that it were
+over for her.
+
+Gervaise soon grew to care for nothing but her three meals per day.
+The shop ran itself; one by one her customers left her. Gervaise
+shrugged her shoulders half indifferently, half insolently; everybody
+could leave her, she said: she could always get work. But she was
+mistaken, and soon it became necessary for her to dismiss Mme Putois,
+keeping no assistant except Augustine, who seemed to grow more and
+more stupid as time went on. Ruin was fast approaching. Naturally, as
+indolence and poverty increased, so did lack of cleanliness. No one
+would ever have known that pretty blue shop in which Gervaise had
+formerly taken such pride. The windows were unwashed and covered with
+the mud scattered by the passing carriages. Within it was still more
+forlorn: the dampness of the steaming linen had ruined the paper;
+everything was covered with dust; the stove, which once had been kept
+so bright, was broken and battered. The long ironing table was covered
+with wine stains and grease, looking as if it had served a whole
+garrison. The atmosphere was loaded with a smell of cooking and of
+sour starch. But Gervaise was unconscious of it. She did not notice
+the torn and untidy paper and, having ceased to pay any attention to
+personal cleanliness, was hardly likely to spend her time in scrubbing
+the greasy floors. She allowed the dust to accumulate over everything
+and never lifted a finger to remove it. Her own comfort and
+tranquillity were now her first considerations.
+
+Her debts were increasing, but they had ceased to give her any
+uneasiness. She was no longer honest or straightforward. She did not
+care whether she ever paid or not, so long as she got what she wanted.
+When one shop refused her more credit she opened an account next
+door. She owed something in every shop in the whole _Quartier_. She
+dared not pass the grocer or the baker in her own street and was
+compelled to make a lengthy circuit each time she went out. The
+tradespeople muttered and grumbled, and some went so far as to call
+her a thief and a swindler.
+
+One evening the man who had sold her the furniture for Lantier's room
+came in with ugly threats.
+
+Such scenes were unquestionably disagreeable. She trembled for an hour
+after them, but they never took away her appetite.
+
+It was very stupid of these people, after all, she said to Lantier.
+How could she pay them if she had no money? And where could she get
+money? She closed her eyes to the inevitable and would not think of
+the future. Mamma Coupeau was well again, but the household had been
+disorganized for more than a year. In summer there was more work
+brought to the shop--white skirts and cambric dresses. There were
+ups and downs, therefore: days when there was nothing in the house
+for supper and others when the table was loaded.
+
+Mamma Coupeau was seen almost daily, going out with a bundle under her
+apron and returning without it and with a radiant face, for the old
+woman liked the excitement of going to the Mont-de-Piete.
+
+Gervaise was gradually emptying the house--linen and clothes, tools
+and furniture. In the beginning she took advantage of a good week
+to take out what she had pawned the week before, but after a while
+she ceased to do that and sold her tickets. There was only one thing
+which cost her a pang, and that was selling her clock. She had sworn
+she would not touch it, not unless she was dying of hunger, and
+when at last she saw her mother-in-law carry it away she dropped
+into a chair and wept like a baby. But when the old woman came back
+with twenty-five francs and she found she had five francs more than
+was demanded by the pressing debt which had caused her to make the
+sacrifice, she was consoled and sent out at once for four sous' worth
+of brandy. When these two women were on good terms they often drank
+a glass together, sitting at the corner of the ironing table.
+
+Mamma Coupeau had a wonderful talent for bringing a glass in the
+pocket of her apron without spilling a drop. She did not care to have
+the neighbors know, but, in good truth, the neighbors knew very well
+and laughed and sneered as the old woman went in and out.
+
+This, as was natural and right, increased the prejudice against
+Gervaise. Everyone said that things could not go on much longer;
+the end was near.
+
+Amid all this ruin Coupeau thrived surprisingly. Bad liquor seemed
+to affect him agreeably. His appetite was good in spite of the amount
+he drank, and he was growing stout. Lantier, however, shook his head,
+declaring that it was not honest flesh and that he was bloated. But
+Coupeau drank all the more after this statement and was rarely or ever
+sober. There began to be a strange bluish tone in his complexion. His
+spirits never flagged. He laughed at his wife when she told him of
+her embarrassments. What did he care, so long as she provided him with
+food to eat? And the longer he was idle, the more exacting he became
+in regard to this food.
+
+He was ignorant of his wife's infidelity, at least, so all his friends
+declared. They believed, moreover, that were he to discover it there
+would be great trouble. But Mme Lerat, his own sister, shook her head
+doubtfully, averring that she was not so sure of his ignorance.
+
+Lantier was also in good health and spirits, neither too stout nor
+too thin. He wished to remain just where he was, for he was thoroughly
+well satisfied with himself, and this made him critical in regard to
+his food, as he had made a study of the things he should eat and those
+he should avoid for the preservation of his figure. Even when there
+was not a cent he asked for eggs and cutlets: nourishing and light
+things were what he required, he said. He ruled Gervaise with a rod of
+iron, grumbled and found fault far more than Coupeau ever did. It was
+a house with two masters, one of whom, cleverer by far than the other,
+took the best of everything. He skimmed the Coupeaus, as it were, and
+kept all the cream for himself. He was fond of Nana because he liked
+girls better than boys. He troubled himself little about Etienne.
+
+When people came and asked for Coupeau it was Lantier who appeared
+in his shirt sleeves with the air of the man of the house who is
+needlessly disturbed. He answered for Coupeau, said it was one and
+the same thing.
+
+Gervaise did not find this life always smooth and agreeable. She had
+no reason to complain of her health. She had become very stout. But
+it was hard work to provide for and please these two men. When they
+came in, furious and out of temper, it was on her that they wreaked
+their rage. Coupeau abused her frightfully and called her by the
+coarsest epithets. Lantier, on the contrary, was more select in his
+phraseology, but his words cut her quite as deeply. Fortunately people
+become accustomed to almost everything in this world, and Gervaise
+soon ceased to care for the reproaches and injustice of these two men.
+She even preferred to have them out of temper with her, for then they
+let her alone in some degree; but when they were in a good humor they
+were all the time at her heels, and she could not find a leisure
+moment even to iron a cap, so constant were the demands they made upon
+her. They wanted her to do this and do that, to cook little dishes for
+them and wait upon them by inches.
+
+One night she dreamed she was at the bottom of a well. Coupeau was
+pushing her down with his fists, and Lantier was tickling her to make
+her jump out quicker. And this, she thought, was a very fair picture
+of her life! She said that the people of the _Quartier_ were very
+unjust, after all, when they reproached her for the way of life into
+which she had fallen. It was not her fault. It was not she who had
+done it, and a little shiver ran over her as she reflected that
+perhaps the worst was not yet.
+
+The utter deterioration of her nature was shown by the fact that she
+detested neither her husband nor Lantier. In a play at the Gaite she
+had seen a woman hate her husband and poison him for the sake of her
+lover. This she thought very strange and unnatural. Why could the
+three not have lived together peaceably? It would have been much
+more reasonable!
+
+In spite of her debts, in spite of the shifts to which her increasing
+poverty condemned her, Gervaise would have considered herself quite
+well off, but for the exacting selfishness of Lantier and Coupeau.
+
+Toward autumn Lantier became more and more disgusted, declared he
+had nothing to live on but potato parings and that his health was
+suffering. He was enraged at seeing the house so thoroughly cleared
+out, and he felt that the day was not far off when he must take his
+hat and depart. He had become accustomed to his den, and he hated to
+leave it. He was thoroughly provoked that the extravagant habits of
+Gervaise necessitated this sacrifice on his part. Why could she not
+have shown more sense? He was sure he didn't know what would become
+of them. Could they have struggled on six months longer, he could
+have concluded an affair which would have enabled him to support
+the whole family in comfort.
+
+One day it came to pass that there was not a mouthful in the house,
+not even a radish. Lantier sat by the stove in somber discontent.
+Finally he started up and went to call on the Poissons, to whom he
+suddenly became friendly to a degree. He no longer taunted the police
+officer but condescended to admit that the emperor was a good fellow
+after all. He showed himself especially civil to Virginie, whom he
+considered a clever woman and well able to steer her bark through
+stormy seas.
+
+Virginie one day happened to say in his presence that she should like
+to establish herself in some business. He approved the plan and paid
+her a succession of adroit compliments on her capabilities and cited
+the example of several women he knew who had made or were making their
+fortunes in this way.
+
+Virginie had the money, an inheritance from an aunt, but she
+hesitated, for she did not wish to leave the _Quartier_ and she
+did not know of any shop she could have. Then Lantier led her into
+a corner and whispered to her for ten minutes; he seemed to be
+persuading her to something. They continued to talk together in
+this way at intervals for several days, seeming to have some secret
+understanding.
+
+Lantier all this time was fretting and scolding at the Coupeaus,
+asking Gervaise what on earth she intended to do, begging her to
+look things fairly in the face. She owed five or six hundred francs
+to the tradespeople about her. She was behindhand with her rent, and
+Marescot, the landlord, threatened to turn her out if they did not pay
+before the first of January.
+
+The Mont-de-Piete had taken everything; there was literally nothing
+but the nails in the walls left. What did she mean to do?
+
+Gervaise listened to all this at first listlessly, but she grew angry
+at last and cried out:
+
+"Look here! I will go away tomorrow and leave the key in the door.
+I had rather sleep in the gutter than live in this way!"
+
+"And I can't say that it would not be a wise thing for you to do!"
+answered Lantier insidiously. "I might possibly assist you to find
+someone to take the lease off your hands whenever you really conclude
+to leave the shop."
+
+"I am ready to leave it at once!" cried Gervaise violently. "I am
+sick and tired of it."
+
+Then Lantier became serious and businesslike. He spoke openly of
+Virginie, who, he said, was looking for a shop; in fact, he now
+remembered having heard her say that she would like just such a
+one as this.
+
+But Gervaise shrank back and grew strangely calm at this name of
+Virginie.
+
+She would see, she said; on the whole, she must have time to think.
+People said a great many things when they were angry, which on
+reflection were found not to be advisable.
+
+Lantier rang the changes on this subject for a week, but Gervaise said
+she had decided to employ some woman and go to work again, and if she
+were not able to get back her old customers she could try for new
+ones. She said this merely to show Lantier that she was not so utterly
+downcast and crushed as he had seemed to take for granted was the
+case.
+
+He was reckless enough to drop the name of Virginie once more, and she
+turned upon him in a rage.
+
+"No, no, never!" She had always distrusted Virginie, and if she wanted
+the shop it was only to humiliate her. Any other woman might have it,
+but not this hypocrite, who had been waiting for years to gloat over
+her downfall. No, she understood now only too well the meaning of the
+yellow sparks in her cat's eyes. It was clear to her that Virginie had
+never forgotten the scene in the lavatory, and if she did not look out
+there would be a repetition of it.
+
+Lantier stood aghast at this anger and this torrent of words, but
+presently he plucked up courage and bade her hold her tongue and told
+her she should not talk of his friends in that way. As for himself, he
+was sick and tired of other people's affairs; in future he would let
+them all take care of themselves, without a word of counsel from him.
+
+January arrived, cold and damp. Mamma Coupeau took to her bed with
+a violent cold which she expected each year at this time. But those
+about her said she would never leave the house again, except feet
+first.
+
+Her children had learned to look forward to her death as a happy
+deliverance for all. The physician who came once was not sent for
+again. A little tisane was given her from time to time that she might
+not feel herself utterly neglected. She was just alive; that was all.
+It now became a mere question of time with her, but her brain was
+clear still, and in the expression of her eyes there were many things
+to be read--sorrow at seeing no sorrow in those she left behind her
+and anger against Nana, who was utterly indifferent to her.
+
+One Monday evening Coupeau came in as tipsy as usual and threw
+himself on the bed, all dressed. Gervaise intended to remain with
+her mother-in-law part of the night, but Nana was very brave and
+said she would hear if her grandmother moved and wanted anything.
+
+About half-past three Gervaise woke with a start; it seemed to her
+that a cold blast had swept through the room. Her candle had burned
+down, and she nastily wrapped a shawl around her with trembling hands
+and hurried into the next room. Nana was sleeping quietly, and her
+grandmother was dead in the bed at her side.
+
+Gervaise went to Lantier and waked him.
+
+"She is dead," she said.
+
+"Well, what of it?" he muttered, half asleep. "Why don't you go to
+sleep?"
+
+She turned away in silence while he grumbled at her coming to disturb
+him by the intelligence of a death in the house.
+
+Gervaise dressed herself, not without tears, for she really loved the
+cross old woman whose son lay in the heavy slumbers of intoxication.
+
+When she went back to the room she found Nana sitting up and rubbing
+her eyes. The child realized what had come to pass and trembled
+nervously in the face of this death of which she had thought much in
+the last two days, as of something which was hidden from children.
+
+"Get up!" said her mother in a low voice. "I do not wish you to stay
+here."
+
+The child slipped from her bed slowly and regretfully, with her eyes
+fixed on the dead body of her grandmother.
+
+Gervaise did not know what to do with her or where to send her. At
+this moment Lantier appeared at the door. He had dressed himself,
+impelled by a little shame at his own conduct.
+
+"Let the child go into my room," he said, "and I will help you."
+
+Nana looked first at her mother and then at Lantier and then trotted
+with her little bare feet into the next room and slipped into the bed
+that was still warm.
+
+She lay there wide awake with blazing cheeks and eyes and seemed to
+be absorbed in thought.
+
+While Lantier and Gervaise were silently occupied with the dead
+Coupeau lay and snored.
+
+Gervaise hunted in a bureau to find a little crucifix which she had
+brought from Plassans, when she suddenly remembered that Mamma Coupeau
+had sold it. They each took a glass of wine and sat by the stove until
+daybreak.
+
+About seven o'clock Coupeau woke. When he heard what had happened he
+declared they were jesting. But when he saw the body he fell on his
+knees and wept like a baby. Gervaise was touched by these tears and
+found her heart softer toward her husband than it had been for many
+a long year.
+
+"Courage, old friend!" said Lantier, pouring out a glass of wine as
+he spoke.
+
+Coupeau took some wine, but he continued to weep, and Lantier went off
+under pretext of informing the family, but he did not hurry. He walked
+along slowly, smoking a cigar, and after he had been to Mme Lerat's he
+stopped in at a _cremerie_ to take a cup of coffee, and there he
+sat for an hour or more in deep thought.
+
+By nine o'clock the family were assembled in the shop, whose shutters
+had not been taken down. Lorilleux only remained for a few moments and
+then went back to his shop. Mme Lorilleux shed a few tears and then
+sent Nana to buy a pound of candles.
+
+"How like Gervaise!" she murmured. "She can do nothing in a proper
+way!"
+
+Mme Lerat went about among the neighbors to borrow a crucifix. She
+brought one so large that when it was laid on the breast of Mamma
+Coupeau the weight seemed to crush her.
+
+Then someone said something about holy water, so Nana was sent to the
+church with a bottle. The room assumed a new aspect. On a small table
+burned a candle, near it a glass of holy water in which was a branch
+of box.
+
+"Everything is in order," murmured the sisters; "people can come now
+as soon as they please."
+
+Lantier made his appearance about eleven. He had been to make
+inquiries in regard to funeral expenses.
+
+"The coffin," he said, "is twelve francs, and if you want a Mass, ten
+francs more. A hearse is paid for according to its ornaments."
+
+"You must remember," said Mme Lorilleux with compressed lips, "that
+Mamma must be buried according to her purse."
+
+"Precisely!" answered Lantier. "I only tell you this as your guide.
+Decide what you want, and after breakfast I will go and attend to
+it all."
+
+He spoke in a low voice, oppressed by the presence of the dead. The
+children were laughing in the courtyard and Nana singing loudly.
+
+Gervaise said gently:
+
+"We are not rich, to be sure, but we wish to do what she would have
+liked. If Mamma Coupeau has left us nothing it was not her fault and
+no reason why we should bury her as if she were a dog. No, there must
+be a Mass and a hearse."
+
+"And who will pay for it?" asked Mme Lorilleux. "We can't, for we
+lost much money last week, and I am quite sure you would find it
+hard work!"
+
+Coupeau, when he was consulted, shrugged his shoulders with a gesture
+of profound indifference. Mme Lerat said she would pay her share.
+
+"There are three of us," said Gervaise after a long calculation; "if
+we each pay thirty francs we can do it with decency."
+
+But Mme Lorilleux burst out furiously:
+
+"I will never consent to such folly. It is not that I care for the
+money, but I disapprove of the ostentation. You can do as you please."
+
+"Very well," replied Gervaise, "I will. I have taken care of your
+mother while she was living; I can bury her now that she is dead."
+
+Then Mme Lorilleux fell to crying, and Lantier had great trouble
+in preventing her from going away at once, and the quarrel grew so
+violent that Mme Lerat hastily closed the door of the room where
+the dead woman lay, as if she feared the noise would waken her.
+The children's voices rose shrill in the air with Nana's perpetual
+"Tra-la-la" above all the rest.
+
+"Heavens, how wearisome those children are with their songs," said
+Lantier. "Tell them to be quiet, and make Nana come in and sit down."
+
+Gervaise obeyed these dictatorial orders while her sisters-in-law went
+home to breakfast, while the Coupeaus tried to eat, but they were made
+uncomfortable by the presence of death in their crowded quarters. The
+details of their daily life were disarranged.
+
+Gervaise went to Goujet and borrowed sixty francs, which, added to
+thirty from Mme Lerat, would pay the expenses of the funeral. In
+the afternoon several persons came in and looked at the dead woman,
+crossing themselves as they did so and shaking holy water over the
+body with the branch of box. They then took their seats in the shop
+and talked of the poor thing and of her many virtues. One said she
+had talked with her only three days before, and another asked if
+it were not possible it was a trance.
+
+By evening the Coupeaus felt it was more than they could bear.
+It was a mistake to keep a body so long. One has, after all, only
+so many tears to shed, and that done, grief turns to worry. Mamma
+Coupeau--stiff and cold--was a terrible weight on them all. They
+gradually lost the sense of oppression, however, and spoke louder.
+
+After a while M. Marescot appeared. He went to the inner room and
+knelt at the side of the corpse. He was very religious, they saw.
+He made a sign of the cross in the air and dipped the branch into
+the holy water and sprinkled the body. M. Marescot, having finished
+his devotions, passed out into the shop and said to Coupeau:
+
+"I came for the two quarters that are due. Have you got the money
+for me?"
+
+"No sir, not entirely," said Gervaise, coming forward, excessively
+annoyed at this scene taking place in the presence of her
+sisters-in-law. "You see, this trouble came upon us--"
+
+"Undoubtedly," answered her landlord; "but we all of us have our
+troubles. I cannot wait any longer. I really must have the money.
+If I am not paid by tomorrow I shall most assuredly take immediate
+measures to turn you out."
+
+Gervaise clasped her hands imploringly, but he shook his head,
+saying that discussion was useless; besides, just then it would
+be a disrespect to the dead.
+
+"A thousand pardons!" he said as he went out. "But remember that
+I must have the money tomorrow."
+
+And as he passed the open door of the lighted room he saluted the
+corpse with another genuflection.
+
+After he had gone the ladies gathered around the stove, where a great
+pot of coffee stood, enough to keep them all awake for the whole
+night. The Poissons arrived about eight o'clock; then Lantier,
+carefully watching Gervaise, began to speak of the disgraceful act
+committed by the landlord in coming to a house to collect money at
+such a time.
+
+"He is a thorough hypocrite," continued Lantier, "and were I in Madame
+Coupeau's place, I would walk off and leave his house on his hands."
+
+Gervaise heard but did not seem to heed.
+
+The Lorilleuxs, delighted at the idea that she would lose her shop,
+declared that Lantier's idea was an excellent one. They gave Coupeau
+a push and repeated it to him.
+
+Gervaise seemed to be disposed to yield, and then Virginie spoke in
+the blandest of tones.
+
+"I will take the lease off your hands," she said, "and will arrange
+the back rent with your landlord."
+
+"No, no! Thank you," cried Gervaise, shaking off the lethargy in which
+she had been wrapped. "I can manage this matter and I can work. No,
+no, I say."
+
+Lantier interposed and said soothingly:
+
+"Never mind! We will talk of it another time--tomorrow, possibly."
+
+The family were to sit up all night. Nana cried vociferously when she
+was sent into the Boche quarters to sleep; the Poissons remained until
+midnight. Virginia began to talk of the country: she would like to be
+buried under a tree with flowers and grass on her grave. Mme Lerat
+said that in her wardrobe--folded up in lavender--was the linen sheet
+in which her body was to be wrapped.
+
+When the Poissons went away Lantier accompanied them in order,
+he said, to leave his bed for the ladies, who could take turns in
+sleeping there. But the ladies preferred to remain together about
+the stove.
+
+Mme Lorilleux said she had no black dress, and it was too bad that she
+must buy one, for they were sadly pinched just at this time. And she
+asked Gervaise if she was sure that her mother had not a black skirt
+which would do, one that had been given her on her birthday. Gervaise
+went for the skirt. Yes, it would do if it were taken in at the waist.
+
+Then Mme Lorilleux looked at the bed and the wardrobe and asked if
+there was nothing else belonging to her mother.
+
+Here Mme Lerat interfered. The Coupeaus, she said, had taken care of
+her mother, and they were entitled to all the trifles she had left.
+The night seemed endless. They drank coffee and went by turns to look
+at the body, lying silent and calm under the flickering light of the
+candle.
+
+The interment was to take place at half-past ten, but Gervaise would
+gladly have given a hundred francs, if she had had them, to anyone who
+would have taken Mamma Coupeau away three hours before the time fixed.
+
+"Ah," she said to herself, "it is no use to disguise the fact: people
+are very much in the way after they are dead, no matter how much you
+have loved them!"
+
+Father Bazonge, who was never known to be sober, appeared with the
+coffin and the pall. When he saw Gervaise he stood with his eyes
+starting from his head.
+
+"I beg you pardon," he said, "but I thought it was for you," and he
+was turning to go away.
+
+"Leave the coffin!" cried Gervaise, growing very pale. Bazonge began
+to apologize:
+
+"I heard them talking yesterday, but I did not pay much attention. I
+congratulate you that you are still alive. Though why I do, I do not
+know, for life is not such a very agreeable thing."
+
+Gervaise listened with a shiver of horror and a morbid dread that he
+would take her away and shut her up in his box and bury her. She had
+once heard him say that he knew a woman who would be only too thankful
+if he would do exactly that.
+
+"He is horribly drunk," she murmured in a tone of mingled disgust and
+terror.
+
+"It will come for you another time," he said with a laugh; "you have
+only to make me a little sign. I am a great consolation to women
+sometimes, and you need not sneer at poor Father Bazonge, for he has
+held many a fine lady in his arms, and they made no complaint when
+he laid them down to sleep in the shade of the evergreens."
+
+"Do hold your tongue," said Lorilleux; "this is no time for such talk.
+Be off with you!"
+
+The clock struck ten. The friends and neighbors had assembled in the
+shop while the family were in the back room, nervous and feverish with
+suspense.
+
+Four men appeared--the undertaker, Bazonge and his three assistants
+placed the body in the coffin. Bazonge held the screws in his mouth
+and waited for the family to take their last farewell.
+
+Then Coupeau, his two sisters and Gervaise kissed their mother,
+and their tears fell fast on her cold face. The lid was put on and
+fastened down.
+
+The hearse was at the door to the great edification of the
+tradespeople of the neighborhood, who said under their breath that
+the Coupeaus had best pay their debts.
+
+"It is shameful," Gervaise was saying at the same moment, speaking
+of the Lorilleuxs. "These people have not even brought a bouquet of
+violets for their mother."
+
+It was true they had come empty-handed, while Mme Lerat had brought
+a wreath of artificial flowers which was laid on the bier.
+
+Coupeau and Lorilleux, with their hats in their hands, walked at the
+head of the procession of men. After them followed the ladies, headed
+by Mme Lorilleux in her black skirt, wrenched from the dead, her
+sister trying to cover a purple dress with a large black shawl.
+
+Gervaise had lingered behind to close the shop and give Nana into the
+charge of Mme Boche and then ran to overtake the procession, while the
+little girl stood with the concierge, profoundly interested in seeing
+her grandmother carried in that beautiful carriage.
+
+Just as Gervaise joined the procession Goujet came up a side street
+and saluted her with a slight bow and with a faint sweet smile. The
+tears rushed to her eyes. She did not weep for Mamma Coupeau but
+rather for herself, but her sisters-in-law looked at her as if she
+were the greatest hypocrite in the world.
+
+At the church the ceremony was of short duration. The Mass dragged
+a little because the priest was very old.
+
+The cemetery was not far off, and the cortege soon reached it. A
+priest came out of a house near by and shivered as he saw his breath
+rise with each _De Profundis_ he uttered.
+
+The coffin was lowered, and as the frozen earth fell upon it more
+tears were shed, accompanied, however, by sigh of relief.
+
+The procession dispersed outside the gates of the cemetery, and at
+the very first cabaret Coupeau turned in, leaving Gervaise alone on
+the sidewalk. She beckoned to Goujet, who was turning the corner.
+
+"I want to speak to you," she said timidly. "I want to tell you how
+ashamed I am for coming to you again to borrow money, but I was at
+my wit's end."
+
+"I am always glad to be of use to you," answered the blacksmith. "But
+pray never allude to the matter before my mother, for I do not wish
+to trouble her. She and I think differently on many subjects."
+
+She looked at him sadly and earnestly. Through her mind flitted a
+vague regret that she had not done as he desired, that she had not
+gone away with him somewhere. Then a vile temptation assailed her.
+She trembled.
+
+"You are not angry now?" she said entreatingly.
+
+"No, not angry, but still heartsick. All is over between us now
+and forever." And he walked off with long strides, leaving Gervaise
+stunned by his words.
+
+"All is over between us!" she kept saying to herself. "And what more
+is there for me then in life?"
+
+She sat down in her empty, desolate room and drank a large tumbler
+of wine. When the others came in she looked up suddenly and said to
+Virginie gently:
+
+"If you want the shop, take it!"
+
+Virginie and her husband jumped at this and sent for the concierge,
+who consented to the arrangement on condition that the new tenants
+would become security for the two quarters then due.
+
+This was agreed upon. The Coupeaus would take a room on the sixth
+floor near the Lorilleuxs. Lantier said politely that if it would not
+be disagreeable to the Poissons he should like much to retain his
+present quarters.
+
+The policeman bowed stiffly but with every intention of being cordial
+and said he decidedly approved of the idea.
+
+Then Lantier withdrew from the discussion entirely, watching Gervaise
+and Virginie out of the corners of his eyes.
+
+That evening when Gervaise was alone again she felt utterly exhausted.
+The place looked twice its usual size. It seemed to her that in
+leaving Mamma Coupeau in the quiet cemetery she had also left much
+that was precious to her, a portion of her own life, her pride in her
+shop, her hopes and her energy. These were not all, either, that she
+had buried that day. Her heart was as bare and empty as her walls and
+her home. She was too weary to try and analyze her sensations but
+moved about as if in a dream.
+
+At ten o'clock, when Nana was undressed, she wept, begging that she
+might be allowed to sleep in her grandmother's bed. Her mother vaguely
+wondered that the child was not afraid and allowed her to do as she
+pleased.
+
+Nana was not timid by nature, and only her curiosity, not her fears,
+had been excited by the events of the last three days, and she curled
+herself up with delight in the soft, warm feather bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+DISASTERS AND CHANGES
+
+
+The new lodging of the Coupeaus was next that of the Bijards. Almost
+opposite their door was a closet under the stairs which went up to
+the roof--a mere hole without light or ventilation, where Father Bru
+slept.
+
+A chamber and a small room, about as large as one's hand, were all the
+Coupeaus had now. Nana's little bed stood in the small room, the door
+of which had to be left open at night, lest the child should stifle.
+
+When it came to the final move Gervaise felt that she could not
+separate from the commode which she had spent so much time in
+polishing when first married and insisted on its going to their new
+quarters, where it was much in the way and stopped up half the window,
+and when Gervaise wished to look out into the court she had not room
+for her elbows.
+
+The first few days she spent in tears. She felt smothered and cramped;
+after having had so much room to move about in it seemed to her that
+she was smothering. It was only at the window she could breathe. The
+courtyard was not a place calculated to inspire cheerful thoughts.
+Opposite her was the window which years before had elicited her
+admiration, where every successive summer scarlet beans had grown to
+a fabulous height on slender strings. Her room was on the shady side,
+and a pot of mignonette would die in a week on her sill.
+
+No, life had not been what she hoped, and it was all very hard to
+bear.
+
+Instead of flowers to solace her declining years she would have but
+thorns. One day as she was looking down into the court she had the
+strangest feeling imaginable. She seemed to see herself standing just
+near the loge of the concierge, looking up at the house and examining
+it for the first time.
+
+This glimpse of the past made her feel faint. It was at least thirteen
+years since she had first seen this huge building--this world within
+a world. The court had not changed. The facade was simply more dingy.
+The same clothes seemed to be hanging at the windows to dry. Below
+there were the shavings from the cabinetmaker's shop, and the gutter
+glittered with blue water, as blue and soft in tone as the water she
+remembered.
+
+But she--alas, how changed was she! She no longer looked up to the
+sky. She was no longer hopeful, courageous and ambitious. She was
+living under the very roof in crowded discomfort, where never a ray
+of sunshine could reach her, and her tears fell fast in utter
+discouragement.
+
+Nevertheless, when Gervaise became accustomed to her new surroundings
+she grew more content. The pieces of furniture she had sold to
+Virginie had facilitated her installation. When the fine weather came
+Coupeau had an opportunity of going into the country to work. He went
+and lived three months without drinking--cured for the time being by
+the fresh, pure air. It does a man sometimes an infinite deal of good
+to be taken away from all his old haunts and from Parisian streets,
+which always seem to exhale a smell of brandy and of wine.
+
+He came back as fresh as a rose, and he brought four hundred francs
+with which he paid the Poissons the amount for which they had become
+security as well as several other small but pressing debts. Gervaise
+had now two or three streets open to her again, which for some time
+she had not dared to enter.
+
+She now went out to iron by the day and had gone back to her old
+mistress, Mme Fauconnier, who was a kindhearted creature and ready
+to do anything for anyone who flattered her adroitly.
+
+With diligence and economy Gervaise could have managed to live
+comfortably and pay all her debts, but this prospect did not charm her
+particularly. She suffered acutely in seeing the Poissons in her old
+shop. She was by no means of a jealous or envious disposition, but
+it was not agreeable to her to hear the admiration expressed for her
+successors by her husband's sisters. To hear them one would suppose
+that never had so beautiful a shop been seen before. They spoke of
+the filthy condition of the place when Virginie moved in--who had
+paid, they declared, thirty francs for cleaning it.
+
+Virginie, after some hesitation, had decided on a small stock of
+groceries--sugar, tea and coffee, also bonbons and chocolate. Lantier
+had advised these because he said the profit on them was immense. The
+shop was repainted, and shelves and cases were put in, and a counter
+with scales such as are seen at confectioners'. The little inheritance
+that Poisson held in reserve was seriously encroached upon. But
+Virginie was triumphant, for she had her way, and the Lorilleuxs
+did not spare Gervaise the description of a case or a jar.
+
+It was said in the street that Lantier had deserted Gervaise,
+that she gave him no peace running after him, but this was not true,
+for he went and came to her apartment as he pleased. Scandal was
+connecting his name and Virginie's. They said Virginie had taken the
+clearstarcher's lover as well as her shop! The Lorilleuxs talked of
+nothing when Gervaise was present but Lantier, Virginie and the shop.
+Fortunately Gervaise was not inclined to jealousy, and Lantier's
+infidelities had hitherto left her undisturbed, but she did not accept
+this new affair with equal tranquillity. She colored or turned pale
+as she heard these allusions, but she would not allow a word to pass
+her lips, as she was fully determined never to gratify her enemies
+by allowing them to see her discomfiture; but a dispute was heard by
+the neighbors about this time between herself and Lantier, who went
+angrily away and was not seen by anyone in the Coupeau quarters for
+more than a fortnight.
+
+Coupeau behaved very oddly. This blind and complacent husband, who
+had closed his eyes to all that was going on at home, was filled with
+virtuous indignation at Lantier's indifference. Then Coupeau went so
+far as to tease Gervaise in regard to this desertion of her lovers.
+She had had bad luck, he said, with hatters and blacksmiths--why did
+she not try a mason?
+
+He said this as if it were a joke, but Gervaise had a firm conviction
+that he was in deadly earnest. A man who is tipsy from one year's end
+to the next is not apt to be fastidious, and there are husbands who at
+twenty are very jealous and at thirty have grown very complacent under
+the influence of constant tippling.
+
+Lantier preserved an attitude of calm indifference. He kept the peace
+between the Poissons and the Coupeaus. Thanks to him, Virginie and
+Gervaise affected for each other the most tender regard. He ruled the
+brunette as he had ruled the blonde, and he would swallow her shop as
+he had that of Gervaise.
+
+It was in June of this year that Nana partook of her first Communion.
+She was about thirteen, slender and tall as an asparagus plant, and
+her air and manner were the height of impertinence and audacity.
+
+She had been sent away from the catechism class the year before on
+account of her bad conduct. And if the curé did not make a similar
+objection this year it was because he feared she would never come
+again and that his refusal would launch on the Parisian _pave_
+another castaway.
+
+Nana danced with joy at the mere thought of what the Lorilleuxs--as
+her godparents--had promised, while Mme Lerat gave the veil and cup,
+Virginie the purse and Lantier a prayer book, so that the Coupeaus
+looked forward to the day without anxiety.
+
+The Poissons--probably through Lantier's advice--selected this
+occasion for their housewarming. They invited the Coupeaus and the
+Boche family, as Pauline made her first Communion on that day, as
+well as Nana.
+
+The evening before, while Nana stood in an ecstasy of delight before
+her presents, her father came in in an abominable condition. His
+virtuous resolutions had yielded to the air of Paris; he had fallen
+into evil ways again, and he now assailed his wife and child with the
+vilest epithets, which did not seem to shock Nana, for they could fall
+from her tongue on occasion with facile glibness.
+
+"I want my soup," cried Coupeau, "and you two fools are chattering
+over those fal-lals! I tell you, I will sit on them if I am not waited
+upon, and quickly too."
+
+Gervaise answered impatiently, but Nana, who thought it better taste
+just then--all things considered--to receive with meekness all her
+father's abuse, dropped her eyes and did not reply.
+
+"Take that rubbish away!" he cried with growing impatience. "Put it
+out of my sight or I will tear it to bits."
+
+Nana did not seem to hear him. She took up the tulle cap and asked her
+mother what it cost, and when Coupeau tried to snatch the cap Gervaise
+pushed him away.
+
+"Let the child alone!" she said. "She is doing no harm!"
+
+Then her husband went into a perfect rage:
+
+"Mother and daughter," he cried, "a nice pair they make. I understand
+very well what all this row is for: it is merely to show yourself in a
+new gown. I will put you in a bag and tie it close round your throat,
+and you will see if the curé likes that!"
+
+Nana turned like lightning to protect her treasures. She looked her
+father full in the face, and, forgetting the lessons taught her by
+her priest, she said in a low, concentrated voice:
+
+"Beast!" That was all.
+
+After Coupeau had eaten his soup he fell asleep and in the morning
+woke quite amiable. He admired his daughter and said she looked quite
+like a young lady in her white robe. Then he added with a sentimental
+air that a father on such days was naturally proud of his child.
+When they were ready to go to the church and Nana met Pauline in
+the corridor, she examined the latter from head to foot and smiled
+condescendingly on seeing that Pauline had not a particle of chic.
+
+The two families started off together, Nana and Pauline in front,
+each with her prayer book in one hand and with the other holding down
+her veil, which swelled in the wind like a sail. They did not speak
+to each other but keenly enjoyed seeing the shopkeepers run to their
+doors to see them, keeping their eyes cast down devoutly but their
+ears wide open to any compliment they might hear.
+
+Nana's two aunts walked side by side, exchanging their opinions
+in regard to Gervaise, whom they stigmatized as an irreligious
+ne'er-do-well whose child would never have gone to the Holy
+Communion if it had depended on her.
+
+At the church Coupeau wept all the time. It was very silly, he knew,
+but he could not help it. The voice of the curé was pathetic; the
+little girls looked like white-robed angels; the organ thrilled him,
+and the incense gratified his senses. There was one especial anthem
+which touched him deeply. He was not the only person who wept, he
+was glad to see, and when the ceremony was over he left the church
+feeling that it was the happiest day of his life. But an hour later
+he quarreled with Lorilleux in a wineshop because the latter was so
+hardhearted.
+
+The housewarming at the Poissons' that night was very gay. Lantier
+sat between Gervaise and Virginie and was equally civil and attentive
+to both. Opposite was Poisson with his calm, impassive face, a look
+he had cultivated since he began his career as a police officer.
+
+But the queens of the fete were the two little girls, Nana and
+Pauline, who sat very erect lest they should crush and deface their
+pretty white dresses. At dessert there was a serious discussion in
+regard to the future of the children. Mme Boche said that Pauline
+would at once enter a certain manufactory, where she would receive
+five or six francs per week. Gervaise had not decided yet, for Nana
+had shown no especial leaning in any direction. She had a good deal
+of taste, but she was butter-fingered and careless.
+
+"I should make a florist of her," said Mme Lerat. "It is clean work
+and pretty work too."
+
+Whereupon ensued a warm discussion. The men were especially careful
+of their language out of deference to the little girls, but Mme Lerat
+would not accept the lesson: she flattered herself she could say what
+she pleased in such a way that it could not offend the most fastidious
+ears.
+
+Women, she declared, who followed her trade were more virtuous than
+others. They rarely made a slip.
+
+"I have no objection to your trade," interrupted Gervaise. "If Nana
+likes to make flowers let her do so. Say, Nana, would you like it?"
+
+The little girl did not look up from her plate, into which she was
+dipping a crust of bread. She smiled faintly as she replied:
+
+"Yes, Mamma; if you desire it I have no objection."
+
+The decision was instantly made, and Coupeau wished his sister to
+take her the very next day to the place where she herself worked,
+Rue du Caire, and the circle talked gravely of the duties of life.
+Boche said that Pauline and Nana were now women, since they had been
+to Communion, and they ought to be serious and learn to cook and to
+mend. They alluded to their future marriages, their homes and their
+children, and the girls touched each other under the table, giggled
+and grew very red. Lantier asked them if they did not have little
+husbands already, and Nana blushingly confessed that she loved Victor
+Fauconnier and never meant to marry anyone else.
+
+Mme Lorilleux said to Mme Boche on their way home:
+
+"Nana is our goddaughter now, but if she goes into that flower
+business, in six months she will be on the _pave_, and we will
+have nothing to do with her."
+
+Gervaise told Boche that she thought the shop admirably arranged. She
+had looked forward to an evening of torture and was surprised that
+she had not experienced a pang.
+
+Nana, as she undressed, asked her mother if the girl on the next
+floor, who had been married the week before, wore a dress of muslin
+like hers.
+
+But this was the last bright day in that household. Two years passed
+away, and their prospects grew darker and their demoralization and
+degradation more evident. They went without food and without fire,
+but never without brandy.
+
+They found it almost impossible to meet their rent, and a certain
+January came when they had not a penny, and Father Boche ordered
+them to leave.
+
+It was frightfully cold, with a sharp wind blowing from the north.
+
+M. Marescot appeared in a warm overcoat and his hands encased in warm
+woolen gloves and told them they must go, even if they slept in the
+gutter. The whole house was oppressed with woe, and a dreary sound of
+lamentation arose from most of the rooms, for half the tenants were
+behindhand. Gervaise sold her bed and paid the rent. Nana made nothing
+as yet, and Gervaise had so fallen off in her work that Mme Fauconnier
+had reduced her wages. She was irregular in her hours and often
+absented herself from the shop for several days together but was none
+the less vexed to discover that her old employee, Mme Putois, had been
+placed above her. Naturally at the end of the week Gervaise had little
+money coming to her.
+
+As to Coupeau, if he worked he brought no money home, and his wife had
+ceased to count upon it. Sometimes he declared he had lost it through
+a hole in his pocket or it had been stolen, but after a while he
+ceased to make any excuses.
+
+But if he had no cash in his pockets it was because he had spent it
+all in drink. Mme Boche advised Gervaise to watch for him at the door
+of the place where he was employed and get his wages from him before
+he had spent them all, but this did no good, as Coupeau was warned
+by his friends and escaped by a rear door.
+
+The Coupeaus were entirely to blame for their misfortunes, but this
+is just what people will never admit. It is always ill luck or the
+cruelty of God or anything, in short, save the legitimate result
+of their own vices.
+
+Gervaise now quarreled with her husband incessantly. The warmth of
+affection of husband and wife, of parents for their children and
+children for their parents had fled and left them all shivering,
+each apart from the other.
+
+All three, Coupeau, Gervaise and Nana, watched each other with eyes
+of baleful hate. It seemed as if some spring had broken--the great
+mainspring that binds families together.
+
+Gervaise did not shudder when she saw her husband lying drunk in the
+gutter. She would not have pushed him in, to be sure, but if he were
+out of the way it would be a good thing for everybody. She even went
+so far as to say one day in a fit of rage that she would be glad to
+see him brought home on a shutter. Of what good was he to any human
+being? He ate and he drank and he slept. His child learned to hate
+him, and she read the accidents in the papers with the feelings of
+an unnatural daughter. What a pity it was that her father had not
+been the man who was killed when that omnibus tipped over!
+
+In addition to her own sorrows and privations, Gervaise, whose
+heart was not yet altogether hard, was condemned to hear now of the
+sufferings of others. The corner of the house in which she lived
+seemed to be consecrated to those who were as poor as herself. No
+smell of cooking filled the air, which, on the contrary, was laden
+with the shrill cries of hungry children, heavy with the sighs of
+weary, heartbroken mothers and with the oaths of drunken husbands
+and fathers.
+
+Gervaise pitied Father Bru from the bottom of her heart; he lay the
+greater part of the time rolled up in the straw in his den under the
+staircase leading to the roof. When two or three days elapsed without
+his showing himself someone opened the door and looked in to see if
+he were still alive.
+
+Yes, he was living; that is, he was not dead. When Gervaise had bread
+she always remembered him. If she had learned to hate men because
+of her husband her heart was still tender toward animals, and Father
+Bru seemed like one to her. She regarded him as a faithful old dog.
+Her heart was heavy within her whenever she thought of him, alone,
+abandoned by God and man, dying by inches or drying, rather, as an
+orange dries on the chimney piece.
+
+Gervaise was also troubled by the vicinity of the undertaker
+Bazonge--a wooden partition alone separated their rooms. When he came
+in at night she could hear him throw down his glazed hat, which fell
+with a dull thud, like a shovelful of clay, on the table. The black
+cloak hung against the wall rustled like the wings of some huge
+bird of prey. She could hear his every movement, and she spent most
+of her time listening to him with morbid horror, while he--all
+unconscious--hummed his vulgar songs and tipsily staggered to his
+bed, under which the poor woman's sick fancy pictured a dead body
+concealed.
+
+She had read in some paper a dismal tale of some undertaker who took
+home with him coffin after coffin--children's coffins--in order to
+make one trip to the cemetery suffice. When she heard his step the
+whole corridor was pervaded to her senses with the odor of dead
+humanity.
+
+She would as lief have resided at Pere-Lachaise and watched the moles
+at their work. The man terrified her; his incessant laughter dismayed
+her. She talked of moving but at the same time was reluctant to do
+so, for there was a strange fascination about Bazonge after all. Had
+he not told her once that he would come for her and lay her down to
+sleep in the shadow of waving branches, where she would know neither
+hunger nor toil?
+
+She wished she could try it for a month. And she thought how delicious
+it would be in midwinter, just at the time her quarter's rent was due.
+But, alas, this was not possible! The rest and the sleep must be
+eternal; this thought chilled her, and her longing for death faded
+away before the unrelenting severity of the bonds exacted by Mother
+Earth.
+
+One night she was sick and feverish, and instead of throwing herself
+out of the window as she was tempted to do, she rapped on the
+partition and called loudly:
+
+"Father Bazonge! Father Bazonge!"
+
+The undertaker was kicking off his slippers, singing a vulgar song
+as he did so.
+
+"What is the matter?" he answered.
+
+But at his voice Gervaise awoke as from a nightmare. What had she
+done? Had she really tapped? she asked herself, and she recoiled from
+his side of the wall in chill horror. It seemed to her that she felt
+the undertaker's hands on her head. No! No! She was not ready. She
+told herself that she had not intended to call him. It was her elbow
+that had knocked the wall accidentally, and she shivered from head
+to foot at the idea of being carried away in this man's arms.
+
+"What is the matter?" repeated Bazonge. "Can I serve you in any way,
+madame?"
+
+"No! No! It is nothing!" answered the laundress in a choked voice.
+"I am very much obliged."
+
+While the undertaker slept she lay wide awake, holding her breath and
+not daring to move, lest he should think she called him again.
+
+She said to herself that under no circumstances would she ever appeal
+to him for assistance, and she said this over and over again with the
+vain hope of reassuring herself, for she was by no means at ease in
+her mind.
+
+Gervaise had before her a noble example of courage and fortitude in
+the Bijard family. Little Lalie, that tiny child--about as big as
+a pinch of salt--swept and kept her room like wax; she watched over
+the two younger children with all the care and patience of a mother.
+This she had done since her father had kicked her mother to death.
+She had entirely assumed that mother's place, even to receiving the
+blows which had fallen formerly on that poor woman. It seemed to be a
+necessity of his nature that when he came home drunk he must have some
+woman to abuse. Lalie was too small, he grumbled; one blow of his fist
+covered her whole face, and her skin was so delicate that the marks of
+his five fingers would remain on her cheek for days!
+
+He would fly at her like a wolf at a poor little kitten for the merest
+trifle. Lalie never answered, never rebelled and never complained.
+She merely tried to shield her face and suppressed all shrieks, lest
+the neighbors should come; her pride could not endure that. When her
+father was tired kicking her about the room she lay where he left her
+until she had strength to rise, and then she went steadily about her
+work, washing the children and making her soup, sweeping and dusting
+until everything was clean. It was a part of her plan of life to be
+beaten every day.
+
+Gervaise had conceived a strong affection for this little neighbor.
+She treated her like a woman who knew something of life. It must be
+admitted that Lalie was large for her years. She was fair and pale,
+with solemn eyes for her years and had a delicate mouth. To have heard
+her talk one would have thought her thirty. She could make and mend,
+and she talked of the children as if she had herself brought them into
+the world. She made people laugh sometimes when she talked, but more
+often she brought tears to their eyes.
+
+Gervaise did everything she could for her, gave her what she could
+and helped the energetic little soul with her work. One day she was
+altering a dress of Nana's for her, and when the child tried it on
+Gervaise was chilled with horror at seeing her whole back purple and
+bruised, the tiny arm bleeding--all the innocent flesh of childhood
+martyrized by the brute--her father.
+
+Bazonge might get the coffin ready, she thought, for the little girl
+could not bear this long. But Lalie entreated her friend to say
+nothing, telling her that her father did not know what he was doing,
+that he had been drinking. She forgave him with her whole heart,
+for madmen must not be held accountable for their deeds. After that
+Gervaise was on the watch whenever she heard Bijard coming up the
+stairs. But she never caught him in any act of absolute brutality.
+Several times she had found Lalie tied to the foot of the bedstead--an
+idea that had entered her father's brain, no one knew why, a whim of
+his disordered brain, disordered by liquor, which probably arose from
+his wish to tyrannize over the child, even when he was no longer
+there.
+
+Lalie sometimes was left there all day and once all night. When
+Gervaise insisted on untying her the child entreated her not to touch
+the knots, saying that her father would be furious if he found the
+knots had been tampered with.
+
+And really, she said with an angelic smile, she needed rest, and the
+only thing that troubled her was not to be able to put the room in
+order. She could watch the children just as well, and she could think,
+so that her time was not entirely lost. When her father let her free,
+her sufferings were not over, for it was sometimes more than an hour
+before she could stand--before the blood circulated freely in her
+stiffened limbs.
+
+Her father had invented another cheerful game. He heated some sous red
+hot on the stove and laid them on the chimney piece. He then summoned
+Lalie and bade her go buy some bread. The child unsuspiciously took up
+the sous, uttered a little shriek and dropped them, shaking her poor
+burned fingers.
+
+Then he would go off in a rage. What did she mean by such nonsense?
+She had thrown away the money and lost it, and he threatened her with
+a hiding if she did not find the money instantly. The poor child
+hesitated; he gave her a cuff on the side of the head. With silent
+tears streaming down her cheeks she would pick up the sous and toss
+them from hand to hand to cool them as she went down the long flights
+of stairs.
+
+There was no limit to the strange ingenuity of the man. One afternoon,
+for example, Lalie had completed playing with the children. The window
+was open, and the air shook the door so that it sounded like gentle
+raps.
+
+"It is Mr Wind," said Lalie; "come in, Mr Wind. How are you today?"
+
+And she made a low curtsy to Mr Wind. The children did the same in
+high glee, and she was quite radiant with happiness, which was not
+often the case.
+
+"Come in, Mr Wind!" she repeated, but the door was pushed open by
+a rough hand and Bijard entered. Then a sudden change came over the
+scene. The two children crouched in a corner, while Lalie stood in the
+center of the floor, frozen stiff with terror, for Bijard held in his
+hand a new whip with a long and wicked-looking lash. He laid this whip
+on the bed and did not kick either one of the children but smiled in
+the most vicious way, showing his two lines of blackened, irregular
+teeth. He was very drunk and very noisy.
+
+"What is the matter with you fools? Have you been struck dumb? I heard
+you all talking and laughing merrily enough before I came in. Where
+are your tongues now? Here! Take off my shoes!"
+
+Lalie, considerably disheartened at not having received her customary
+kick, turned very pale as she obeyed. He was sitting on the side of
+the bed. He lay down without undressing and watched the child as she
+moved about the room. Troubled by this strange conduct, the child
+ended by breaking a cup. Then without disturbing himself he took up
+the whip and showed it to her.
+
+"Look here, fool," he said grimly: "I bought this for you, and it cost
+me fifty sous, but I expect to get a good deal more than fifty sous'
+worth of good out of it. With this long lash I need not run about
+after you, for I can reach you in every corner of the room. You will
+break the cups, will you? Come, now, jump about a little and say good
+morning to Mr Wind again!"
+
+He did not even sit up in the bed but, with his head buried in the
+pillow, snapped the whip with a noise like that made by a postilion.
+The lash curled round Lalie's slender body; she fell to the floor,
+but he lashed her again and compelled her to rise.
+
+"This is a very good thing," he said coolly, "and saves my getting
+chilled on cold mornings. Yes, I can reach you in that corner--and
+in that! Skip now! Skip!"
+
+A light foam was on his lips, and his suffused eyes were starting
+from their sockets. Poor little Lalie darted about the room like a
+terrified bird, but the lash tingled over her shoulders, coiled around
+her slender legs and stung like a viper. She was like an India-rubber
+ball bounding from the floor, while her beast of a father laughed
+aloud and asked her if she had had enough.
+
+The door opened and Gervaise entered. She had heard the noise. She
+stood aghast at the scene and then was seized with noble rage.
+
+"Let her be!" she cried. "I will go myself and summon the police."
+
+Bijard growled like an animal who is disturbed over his prey.
+
+"Why do you meddle?" he exclaimed. "What business is it of yours?"
+
+And with another adroit movement he cut Lalie across the face. The
+blood gushed from her lip. Gervaise snatched a chair and flew at the
+brute, but the little girl held her skirts and said it did not hurt
+much; it would be over soon, and she washed the blood away, speaking
+gently to the frightened children.
+
+When Gervaise thought of Lalie she was ashamed to complain. She wished
+she had the courage of this child. She knew that she had lived on dry
+bread for weeks and that she was so weak she could hardly stand, and
+the tears came to the woman's eyes as she saw the precocious mite who
+had known nothing of the innocent happiness of her years. And Gervaise
+took this slender creature for example, whose eyes alone told the
+story of her misery and hardships, for in the Coupeau family the
+vitriol of the Assommoir was doing its work of destruction. Gervaise
+had seen a whip. Gervaise had learned to dread it, and this dread
+inspired her with tenderest pity for Lalie. Coupeau had lost the
+flesh and the bloated look which had been his, and he was thin and
+emaciated. His complexion was gradually acquiring a leaden hue. His
+appetite was utterly gone. It was with difficulty that he swallowed
+a mouthful of bread. His stomach turned against all solid food, but
+he took his brandy every day. This was his meat as well as his drink,
+and he touched nothing else.
+
+When he crawled out of his bed in the morning he stood for a good
+fifteen minutes, coughing and spitting out a bitter liquid that rose
+in his throat and choked him.
+
+He did not feel any better until he had taken what he called "a good
+drink," and later in the day his strength returned. He felt strange
+prickings in the skin of his hands and feet. But lately his limbs
+had grown heavy. This pricking sensation gave place to the most
+excruciating cramps, which he did not find very amusing. He rarely
+laughed now but often stopped short and stood still on the sidewalk,
+troubled by a strange buzzing in his ears and by flashes of light
+before his eyes. Everything looked yellow to him; the houses seemed to
+be moving away from him. At other times, when the sun was full on his
+back, he shivered as if a stream of ice water had been poured down
+between his shoulders. But the thing he liked the least about himself
+was a nervous trembling in his hands, the right hand especially.
+
+Had he become an old woman then? he asked himself with sudden fury.
+He tried with all his strength to lift his glass and command his
+nerves enough to hold it steady. But the glass had a regular tremulous
+movement from right to left and left to right again, in spite of all
+his efforts.
+
+Then he emptied it down his throat, saying that when he had swallowed
+a dozen more he would be all right and as steady as a monument.
+Gervaise told him, on the contrary, that he must leave off drinking
+if he wished to leave off trembling.
+
+He grew very angry and drank quarts in his eagerness to test the
+question, finally declaring that it was the passing omnibusses that
+jarred the house and shook his hand.
+
+In March Coupeau came in one night drenched to the skin. He had been
+caught out in a shower. That night he could not sleep for coughing.
+In the morning he had a high fever, and the physician who was sent
+for advised Gervaise to send him at once to the hospital.
+
+And Gervaise made no objection; once she had refused to trust her
+husband to these people, but now she consigned him to their tender
+mercies without a regret; in fact, she regarded it as a mercy.
+
+Nevertheless, when the litter came she turned very pale and, if she
+had had even ten francs in her pocket, would have kept him at home.
+She walked to the hospital by the side of the litter and went into
+the ward where he was placed. The room looked to her like a miniature
+Pere-Lachaise, with its rows of beds on either side and its path down
+the middle. She went slowly away, and in the street she turned and
+looked up. How well she remembered when Coupeau was at work on those
+gutters, cheerily singing in the morning air! He did not drink in
+those days, and she, at her window in the Hotel Boncœur, had
+watched his athletic form against the sky, and both had waved their
+handkerchiefs. Yes, Coupeau had worked more than a year on this
+hospital, little thinking that he was preparing a place for himself.
+Now he was no longer on the roof--he had built a dismal nest within.
+Good God, was she and the once-happy wife and mother one and the same?
+How long ago those days seemed!
+
+The next day when Gervaise went to make inquiries she found the bed
+empty. A sister explained that her husband had been taken to the
+asylum of Sainte-Anne, because the night before he had suddenly become
+unmanageable from delirium and had uttered such terrible howls that it
+disturbed the inmates of all the beds in that ward. It was the alcohol
+in his system, she said, which attacked his nerves now, when he was so
+reduced by the inflammation on his lungs that he could not resist it.
+
+The clearstarcher went home, but how or by what route she never knew.
+Her husband was mad--she heard these words reverberating through her
+brain. Life was growing very strange. Nana simply said that he must,
+of course, be left at the asylum, for he might murder them both.
+
+On Sunday only could Gervaise go to Sainte-Anne. It was a long
+distance off. Fortunately there was an omnibus which went very near.
+She got out at La Rue Sante and bought two oranges that she might not
+go quite empty-handed.
+
+But when she went in, to her astonishment she found Coupeau sitting
+up. He welcomed her gaily.
+
+"You are better!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, nearly well," he replied, and they talked together awhile, and
+she gave him the oranges, which pleased and touched him, for he was a
+different man now that he drank tisane instead of liquor. She did not
+dare allude to his delirium, but he spoke of it himself.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I was in a pretty state! I saw rats running all over
+the floor and the walls, and you were calling me, and I saw all sorts
+of horrible things! But I am all right now. Once in a while I have a
+bad dream, but everybody does, I suppose."
+
+Gervaise remained with him until night. When the house surgeon made
+his rounds at six o'clock he told him to hold out his hands. They
+scarcely trembled--an almost imperceptible motion of the tips of his
+fingers was all. But as the room grew darker Coupeau became restless.
+Two or three times he sat up and peered into the remote corners.
+
+Suddenly he stretched out his arms and seemed to crush some creature
+on the wall.
+
+"What is it?" asked Gervaise, terribly frightened.
+
+"Rats!" he said quietly. "Only rats!"
+
+After a long silence he seemed to be dropping off to sleep, with
+disconnected sentences falling from his lips.
+
+"Dirty beasts! Look out, one is under your skirts!" He pulled the
+covering hastily over his head, as if to protect himself against the
+creature he saw.
+
+Then starting up in mad terror, he screamed aloud. A nurse ran to the
+bed, and Gervaise was sent away, mute with horror at this scene.
+
+But when on the following Sunday she went again to the hospital,
+Coupeau was really well. All his dreams had vanished. He slept like
+a child, ten hours without lifting a finger. His wife, therefore, was
+allowed to take him away. The house surgeon gave him a few words of
+advice before he left, assuring him if he continued to drink he would
+be a dead man in three months. All depended on himself. He could live
+at home just as he had lived at Sainte-Anne's and must forget that
+such things as wine and brandy existed.
+
+"He is right," said Gervaise as they took their seats in the omnibus.
+
+"Of course he is right," answered her husband. But after a moment's
+silence he added:
+
+"But then, you know, a drop of brandy now and then never hurts a man:
+it aids digestion."
+
+That very evening he took a tiny drop and for a week was very
+moderate; he had no desire, he said, to end his days at Bicetre.
+But he was soon off his guard, and one day his little drop ended in
+a full glass, to be followed by a second, and so on. At the end of
+a fortnight he had fallen back in the old rut.
+
+Gervaise did her best, but, after all, what can a wife do in such
+circumstances?
+
+She had been so startled by the scene at the asylum that she had
+fully determined to begin a regular life again and hoped that he would
+assist her and do the same himself. But now she saw that there was
+no hope, that even the knowledge of the inevitable results could not
+restrain her husband now.
+
+Then the hell on earth began again; hopeless and intolerant, Nana
+asked indignantly why he had not remained in the asylum. All the money
+she made, she said, should be spent in brandy for her father, for the
+sooner it was ended, the better for them all.
+
+Gervaise blazed out one day when he lamented his marriage and told him
+that it was for her to curse the day when she first saw him. He must
+remember that she had refused him over and over again. The scene was
+a frightful one and one unexampled in the Coupeau annals.
+
+Gervaise, now utterly discouraged, grew more indolent every day. Her
+room was rarely swept. The Lorilleuxs said they could not enter it, it
+was so dirty. They talked all day long over their work of the downfall
+of Wooden Legs. They gloated over her poverty and her rags.
+
+"Well! Well!" they murmured. "A great change has indeed come to that
+beautiful blonde who was so fine in her blue shop."
+
+Gervaise suspected their comments on her and her acts to be most
+unkind, but she determined to have no open quarrel. It was for her
+interest to speak to them when they met, but that was all the
+intercourse between them.
+
+On Saturday Coupeau had told his wife he would take her to the circus;
+he had earned a little money and insisted on indulging himself. Nana
+was obliged to stay late at the place where she worked and would sleep
+with her aunt Mme Lerat.
+
+Seven o'clock came, but no Coupeau. Her husband was drinking with his
+comrades probably. She had washed a cap and mended an old gown with
+the hope of being presentable. About nine o'clock, in a towering rage,
+she sallied forth on an empty stomach to find Coupeau.
+
+"Are you looking for your husband?" said Mme Boche. "He is at the
+Assommoir. Boche has just seen him there."
+
+Gervaise muttered her thanks and went with rapid steps to the
+Assommoir.
+
+A fine rain was falling. The gas in the tavern was blazing brightly,
+lighting up the mirrors, the bottles and glasses. She stood at the
+window and looked in. He was sitting at a table with his comrades.
+The atmosphere was thick with smoke, and he looked stupefied and
+half asleep.
+
+She shivered and wondered why she should stay there and, so thinking,
+turned away, only to come back twice to look again.
+
+The water lay on the uneven sidewalk in pools, reflecting all the
+lights from the Assommoir. Finally she determined on a bold step: she
+opened the door and deliberately walked up to her husband. After all,
+why should she not ask him why he had not kept his promise of taking
+her to the circus? At any rate, she would not stay out there in the
+rain and melt away like a cake of soap.
+
+"She is crazy!" said Coupeau when he saw her. "I tell you, she is
+crazy!"
+
+He and all his friends shrieked with laughter, but no one condescended
+to say what it was that was so very droll. Gervaise stood still, a
+little bewildered by this unexpected reception. Coupeau was so amiable
+that she said:
+
+"Come, you know it is not too late to see something."
+
+"Sit down a minute," said her husband, not moving from his seat.
+
+Gervaise saw she could not stand there among all those men, so she
+accepted the offered chair. She looked at the glasses, whose contents
+glittered like gold. She looked at these dirty, shabby men and at the
+others crowding around the counter. It was very warm, and the pipe
+smoke thickened the air.
+
+Gervaise felt as if she were choking; her eyes smarted, and her head
+was heavy with the fumes of alcohol. She turned around and saw the
+still, the machine that created drunkards. That evening the copper
+was dull and glittered only in one round spot. The shadows of the
+apparatus on the wall behind were strange and weird--creatures with
+tails, monsters opening gigantic jaws as if to swallow the whole
+world.
+
+"What will you take to drink?" said Coupeau.
+
+"Nothing," answered his wife. "You know I have had no dinner!"
+
+"You need it all the more then! Have a drop of something!"
+
+As she hesitated Mes-Bottes said gallantly:
+
+"The lady would like something sweet like herself."
+
+"I like men," she answered angrily, "who do not get tipsy and talk
+like fools! I like men who keep their promises!"
+
+Her husband laughed.
+
+"You had better drink your share," he said, "for the devil a bit of
+a circus will you see tonight."
+
+She looked at him fixedly. A heavy frown contracted her eyebrows. She
+answered slowly:
+
+"You are right; it is a good idea. We can drink up the money
+together."
+
+Bibi brought her a glass of anisette. As she sipped it she remembered
+all at once the brandied fruit she had eaten in the same place with
+Coupeau when he was courting her. That day she had left the brandy and
+took only the fruit, and now she was sitting there drinking liqueur.
+
+But the anisette was good. When her glass was empty she refused
+another, and yet she was not satisfied.
+
+She looked around at the infernal machine behind her--a machine that
+should have been buried ten fathoms deep in the sea. Nevertheless, it
+had for her a strange fascination, and she longed to quench her thirst
+with that liquid fire.
+
+"What is that you have in your glasses?" she asked.
+
+"That, my dear," answered her husband, "is Father Colombe's own
+especial brew. Taste it."
+
+And when a glass of the vitriol was brought to her Coupeau bade her
+swallow it down, saying it was good for her.
+
+After she had drunk this glass Gervaise was no longer conscious of the
+hunger that had tormented her. Coupeau told her they could go to the
+circus another time, and she felt she had best stay where she was. It
+did not rain in the Assommoir, and she had come to look upon the scene
+as rather amusing. She was comfortable and sleepy. She took a third
+glass and then put her head on her folded arms, supporting them on the
+table, and listened to her husband and his friends as they talked.
+
+Behind her the still was at work with constant drip-drip, and she felt
+a mad desire to grapple with it as with some dangerous beast and tear
+out its heart. She seemed to feel herself caught in those copper fangs
+and fancied that those coils of pipe were wound around her own body,
+slowly but surely crushing out her life.
+
+The whole room danced before her eyes, for Gervaise was now in the
+condition which had so often excited her pity and indignation with
+others. She vaguely heard a quarrel arise and a crash of chairs and
+tables, and then Father Colombe promptly turned everyone into the
+street.
+
+It was still raining and a cold, sharp wind blowing. Gervaise lost
+Coupeau, found him and then lost him again. She wanted to go home,
+but she could not find her way. At the corner of the street she took
+her seat by the side of the gutter, thinking herself at her washtub.
+Finally she got home and endeavored to walk straight past the door
+of the concierge, within whose room she was vaguely conscious of
+the Poissons and Lorilleuxs holding up their hands in disgust at
+her condition.
+
+She never knew how she got up those six flights of stairs. But when
+she turned into her own corridor little Lalie ran toward her with
+loving, extended arms.
+
+"Dear Madame Gervaise," she cried, "Papa has not come in; please
+come and see my children. They are sleeping so sweetly!"
+
+But when she looked up in the face of the clearstarcher she recoiled,
+trembling from head to foot. She knew only too well that alcoholic
+smell, those wandering eyes and convulsed lips.
+
+Then as Gervaise staggered past her without speaking the child's arms
+fell at her side, and she looked after her friend with sad and solemn
+eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+LITTLE NANA
+
+
+Nana was growing fast--fair, fresh and dimpled--her skin velvety, like
+a peach, and eyes so bright that men often asked her if they might not
+light their pipes at them. Her mass of blonde hair--the color of ripe
+wheat--looked around her temples as if it were powdered with gold.
+She had a quaint little trick of sticking out the tip of her tongue
+between her white teeth, and this habit, for some reason, exasperated
+her mother.
+
+She was very fond of finery and very coquettish. In this house, where
+bread was not always to be got, it was difficult for her to indulge
+her caprices in the matter of costume, but she did wonders. She
+brought home odds and ends of ribbons from the shop where she worked
+and made them up into bows and knots with which she ornamented her
+dirty dresses. She was not overparticular in washing her feet, but
+she wore her boots so tight that she suffered martyrdom in honor of
+St Crispin, and if anyone asked her what the matter was when the pain
+flushed her face suddenly, she always and promptly laid it to the
+score of the colic.
+
+Summer was the season of her triumphs. In a calico dress that cost
+five or six francs she was as fresh and sweet as a spring morning and
+made the dull street radiant with her youth and her beauty. She went
+by the name of "The Little Chicken." One gown, in particular, suited
+her to perfection. It was white with rose-colored dots, without
+trimming of any kind. The skirt was short and showed her feet. The
+sleeves were very wide and displayed her arms to the elbows. She
+turned the neck away and fastened it with pins--in a corner in the
+corridor, dreading her father's jests--to exhibit her pretty rounded
+throat. A rose-colored ribbon, knotted in the rippling masses of her
+hair, completed her toilet. She was a charming combination of child
+and woman.
+
+Sundays at this period of her life were her days for coquetting with
+the public. She looked forward to them all the week through with a
+longing for liberty and fresh air.
+
+Early in the morning she began her preparations and stood for hours in
+her chemise before the bit of broken mirror nailed by the window, and
+as everyone could see her, her mother would be very much vexed and ask
+how long she intended to show herself in that way.
+
+But she, quite undisturbed, went on fastening down the little curls on
+her forehead with a little sugar and water and then sewed the buttons
+on her boots or took a stitch or two in her frock, barefooted all this
+time and with her chemise slipping off her rounded shoulders.
+
+Her father declared he would exhibit her as the "Wild Girl," at two
+sous a head.
+
+She was very lovely in this scanty costume, the color flushing her
+cheeks in her indignation at her father's sometimes coarse remarks.
+She did not dare answer him, however, but bit off her thread in silent
+rage. After breakfast she went down to the courtyard. The house was
+wrapped in Sunday quiet; the workshops on the lower floor were closed.
+Through some of the open windows the tables were seen laid for
+dinners, the families being on the fortifications "getting an
+appetite."
+
+Five or six girls--Nana, Pauline and others--lingered in the courtyard
+for a time and then took flight altogether into the streets and thence
+to the outer boulevards. They walked in a line, filling up the whole
+sidewalk, with ribbons fluttering in their uncovered hair.
+
+They managed to see everybody and everything through their downcast
+lids. The streets were their native heath, as it were, for they had
+grown up in them.
+
+Nana walked in the center and gave her arm to Pauline, and as they
+were the oldest and tallest of the band, they gave the law to the
+others and decided where they should go for the day and what they
+should do.
+
+Nana and Pauline were deep ones. They did nothing without
+premeditation. If they ran it was to show their slender ankles, and
+when they stopped and panted for breath it was sure to be at the side
+of some youths--young workmen of their acquaintance--who smoked in
+their faces as they talked. Nana had her favorite, whom she always
+saw at a great distance--Victor Fauconnier--and Pauline adored a
+young cabinetmaker, who gave her apples.
+
+Toward sunset the great pleasure of the day began. A band of
+mountebanks would spread a well-worn carpet, and a circle was formed
+to look on. Nana and Pauline were always in the thickest of the
+crowd, their pretty fresh dresses crushed between dirty blouses, but
+insensible to the mingled odors of dust and alcohol, tobacco and dirt.
+They heard vile language; it did not disturb them; it was their own
+tongue--they heard little else. They listened to it with a smile,
+their delicate cheeks unflushed.
+
+The only thing that disturbed them was the appearance of their
+fathers, particularly if these fathers seemed to have been drinking.
+They kept a good lookout for this disaster.
+
+"Look!" cried Pauline. "Your father is coming, Nana."
+
+Then the girl would crouch on her knees and bid the others stand
+close around her, and when he had passed on after an inquiring look
+she would jump up and they would all utter peals of laughter.
+
+But one day Nana was kicked home by her father, and Boche dragged
+Pauline away by her ear.
+
+The girls would ordinarily return to the courtyard in the twilight and
+establish themselves there with the air of not having been away, and
+each invented a story with which to greet their questioning parents.
+Nana now received forty sous per day at the place where she had been
+apprenticed. The Coupeaus would not allow her to change, because she
+was there under the supervision of her aunt, Mme Lerat, who had been
+employed for many years in the same establishment.
+
+The girl went off at an early hour in her little black dress, which
+was too short and too tight for her, and Mme Lerat was bidden,
+whenever she was after her time, to inform Gervaise, who allowed her
+just twenty minutes, which was quite long enough. But she was often
+seven or eight minutes late, and she spent her whole day coaxing her
+aunt not to tell her mother. Mme Lerat, who was fond of the girl and
+understood the follies of youth, did not tell, but at the same time
+she read Nana many a long sermon on her follies and talked of her own
+responsibility and of the dangers a young girl ran in Paris.
+
+"You must tell me everything," she said. "I am too indulgent to you,
+and if evil should come of it I should throw myself into the Seine.
+Understand me, my little kitten; if a man should speak to you you must
+promise to tell me every word he says. Will you swear to do this?"
+
+Nana laughed an equivocal little laugh. Oh yes, she would promise. But
+men never spoke to her; she walked too fast for that. What could they
+say to her? And she explained her irregularity in coming--her five or
+ten minutes delay--with an innocent little air. She had stopped at a
+window to look at pictures or she had stopped to talk to Pauline. Her
+aunt might follow her if she did not believe her.
+
+"Oh, I will watch her. You need not be afraid!" said the widow to her
+brother. "I will answer for her, as I would for myself!"
+
+The place where the aunt and niece worked side by side was a large
+room with a long table down the center. Shelves against the wall were
+piled with boxes and bundles--all covered with a thick coating of
+dust. The gas had blackened the ceiling. The two windows were so large
+that the women, seated at the table, could see all that was going on
+in the street below.
+
+Mme Lerat was the first to make her appearance in the morning, but in
+another fifteen minutes all the others were there. One morning in July
+Nana came in last, which, however, was the usual case.
+
+"I shall be glad when I have a carriage!" she said as she ran to the
+window without even taking off her hat--a shabby little straw.
+
+"What are you looking at?" asked her aunt suspiciously. "Did your
+father come with you?"
+
+"No indeed," answered Nana carelessly; "nor am I looking at anything.
+It is awfully warm, and of all things in the world, I hate to be in a
+hurry."
+
+The morning was indeed frightfully hot. The workwomen had closed the
+blinds, leaving a crack, however, through which they could inspect the
+street, and they took their seats on each side of the table--Mme Lerat
+at the farther end. There were eight girls, four on either side, each
+with her little pot of glue, her pincers and other tools; heaps of
+wires of different lengths and sizes lay on the table, spools of
+cotton and of different-colored papers, petals and leaves cut out of
+silk, velvet and satin. In the center, in a goblet, one of the girls
+had placed a two-sou bouquet,--which was slowly withering in the heat.
+
+"Did you know," said Leonie as she picked up a rose leaf with her
+pincers, "how wretched poor Caroline is with that fellow who used
+to call for her regularly every night?"
+
+Before anyone could answer Leonie added:
+
+"Hush! Here comes Madame."
+
+And in sailed Mme Titreville, a tall, thin woman, who usually remained
+below in the shop. Her employees stood in dread terror of her, as she
+was never known to smile. She went from one to another, finding fault
+with all; she ordered one woman to pull a marguerite to pieces and
+make it over and then went out as stiffly and silently as she had
+come in.
+
+"Houp! Houp!" said Nana under her breath, and a giggle ran round the
+table.
+
+"Really, young ladies," said Mme Lerat, "you will compel me to severe
+measures."
+
+But no one was listening, and no one feared her. She was very
+tolerant. They could say what they pleased, provided they put it
+in decent language.
+
+Nana was certainly in a good school! Her instincts, to be sure,
+were vicious, but these instincts were fostered and developed in
+this place, as is too often the case when a crowd of girls are
+herded together. It was the story of a basket of apples, the good
+ones spoiled by those that were already rotten. If two girls were
+whispering in a corner, ten to one they were telling some story that
+could not be told aloud.
+
+Nana was not yet thoroughly perverted, but the curiosity which had
+been her distinguishing characteristic as a child had not deserted
+her, and she scarcely took her eyes from a girl by the name of Lisa,
+about whom strange stories were told.
+
+"How warm it is!" she exclaimed, suddenly rising and pushing open the
+blinds. Leonie saw a man standing on the sidewalk opposite.
+
+"Who is that old fellow?" she said. "He has been there a full quarter
+of an hour."
+
+"Some fool who has nothing better to do, I suppose," said Mme Lerat.
+"Nana, will you come back to your work? I have told you that you
+should not go to that window."
+
+Nana took up her violets, and they all began to watch this man. He was
+well dressed, about fifty, pale and grave. For a full hour he watched
+the windows.
+
+"Look!" said Leonie. "He has an eyeglass. Oh, he is very chic. He is
+waiting for Augustine." But Augustine sharply answered that she did
+not like the old man.
+
+"You make a great mistake then," said Mme Lerat with her equivocal
+smile.
+
+Nana listened to the conversation which followed--reveling in
+indecency--as much at home in it as a fish is in water. All the time
+her fingers were busy at work. She wound her violet stems and fastened
+in the leaves with a slender strip of green paper. A drop of gum--and
+then behold a bunch of delicate fresh verdure which would fascinate
+any lady. Her fingers were especially deft by nature. No instruction
+could have imparted this quality.
+
+The gentleman had gone away, and the workshop settled down into quiet
+once more. When the bell rang for twelve Nana started up and said she
+would go out and execute any commissions. Leonie sent for two sous'
+worth of shrimp, Augustine for some fried potatoes, Sophie for a
+sausage and Lisa for a bunch of radishes. As she was going out, her
+aunt said quietly:
+
+"I will go with you. I want something."
+
+Lo, in the lane running up by the shop was the mysterious stranger.
+Nana turned very red, and her aunt drew her arm within her own and
+hurried her along.
+
+So then he had come for her! Was not this pretty behavior for a girl
+of her age? And Mme Lerat asked question after question, but Nana knew
+nothing of him, she declared, though he had followed her for five
+days.
+
+Mme Lerat looked at the man out of the corners of her eyes. "You must
+tell me everything," she said.
+
+While they talked they went from shop to shop, and their arms grew
+full of small packages, but they hurried back, still talking of the
+gentleman.
+
+"It may be a good thing," said Mme Lerat, "if his intentions are only
+honorable."
+
+The workwomen ate their breakfast on their knees; they were in no
+hurry, either, to return to their work, when suddenly Leonie uttered
+a low hiss, and like magic each girl was busy. Mme Titreville entered
+the room and again made her rounds.
+
+Mme Lerat did not allow her niece after this day to set foot on the
+street without her. Nana at first was inclined to rebel, but, on the
+whole, it rather flattered her vanity to be guarded like a treasure.
+They had discovered that the man who followed her with such
+persistency was a manufacturer of buttons, and one night the aunt
+went directly up to him and told him that he was behaving in a most
+improper manner. He bowed and, turning on his heel, departed--not
+angrily, by any means--and the next day he did as usual.
+
+One day, however, he deliberately walked between the aunt and the
+niece and said something to Nana in a low voice. This frightened Mme
+Lerat, who went at once to her brother and told him the whole story,
+whereupon he flew into a violent rage, shook the girl until her teeth
+chattered and talked to her as if she were the vilest of the vile.
+
+"Let her be!" said Gervaise with all a woman's sense. "Let her be!
+Don't you see that you are putting all sorts of things into her head?"
+
+And it was quite true; he had put ideas into her head and had taught
+her some things she did not know before, which was very astonishing.
+One morning he saw her with something in a paper. It was _poudre de
+riz_, which, with a most perverted taste, she was plastering upon
+her delicate skin. He rubbed the whole of the powder into her hair
+until she looked like a miller's daughter. Another time she came in
+with red ribbons to retrim her old hat; he asked her furiously where
+she got them.
+
+Whenever he saw her with a bit of finery her father flew at her with
+insulting suspicion and angry violence. She defended herself and her
+small possessions with equal violence. One day he snatched from her
+a little cornelian heart and ground it to dust under his heel.
+
+She stood looking on, white and stern; for two years she had longed
+for this heart. She said to herself that she would not bear such
+treatment long. Coupeau occasionally realized that he had made a
+mistake, but the mischief was done.
+
+He went every morning with Nana to the shop door and waited outside
+for five minutes to be sure that she had gone in. But one morning,
+having stopped to talk with a friend on the corner for some time, he
+saw her come out again and vanish like a flash around the corner. She
+had gone up two flights higher than the room where she worked and had
+sat down on the stairs until she thought him well out of the way.
+
+When he went to Mme Lerat she told him that she washed her hands of
+the whole business; she had done all she could, and now he must take
+care of his daughter himself. She advised him to marry the girl at
+once or she would do worse.
+
+All the people in the neighborhood knew Nana's admirer by sight. He
+had been in the courtyard several times, and once he had been seen
+on the stairs.
+
+The Lorilleuxs threatened to move away if this sort of thing went on,
+and Mme Boche expressed great pity for this poor gentleman whom this
+scamp of a girl was leading by the nose.
+
+At first Nana thought the whole thing a great joke, but at the end of
+a month she began to be afraid of him. Often when she stopped before
+the jeweler's he would suddenly appear at her side and ask her what
+she wanted.
+
+She did not care so much for jewelry or ornaments as she did for many
+other things. Sometimes as the mud was spattered over her from the
+wheels of a carriage she grew faint and sick with envious longings
+to be better dressed, to go to the theater, to have a pretty room all
+to herself. She longed to see another side of life, to know something
+of its pleasures. The stranger invariably appeared at these moments,
+but she always turned and fled, so great was her horror of him.
+
+But when winter came existence became well-nigh intolerable. Each
+evening Nana was beaten, and when her father was tired of this
+amusement her mother scolded. They rarely had anything to eat and
+were always cold. If the girl bought some trifling article of dress
+it was taken from her.
+
+No! This life could not last. She no longer cared for her father. He
+had thoroughly disgusted her, and now her mother drank too. Gervaise
+went to the Assommoir nightly--for her husband, she said--and remained
+there. When Nana saw her mother sometimes as she passed the window,
+seated among a crowd of men, she turned livid with rage, because youth
+has little patience with the vice of intemperance. It was a dreary
+life for her--a comfortless home and a drunken father and mother. A
+saint on earth could not have remained there; that she knew very well,
+and she said she would make her escape some fine day, and then perhaps
+her parents would be sorry and would admit that they had pushed her
+out of the nest.
+
+One Saturday Nana, coming in, found her mother and father in a
+deplorable condition--Coupeau lying across the bed and Gervaise
+sitting in a chair, swaying to and fro. She had forgotten the dinner,
+and one untrimmed candle lighted the dismal scene.
+
+"Is that you, girl?" stammered Gervaise. "Well, your father will
+settle with you!"
+
+Nana did not reply. She looked around the cheerless room, at the
+cold stove, at her parents. She did not step across the threshold.
+She turned and went away.
+
+And she did not come back! The next day when her father and mother
+were sober, they each reproached the other for Nana's flight.
+
+This was really a terrible blow to Gervaise, who had no longer the
+smallest motive for self-control, and she abandoned herself at once
+to a wild orgy that lasted three days. Coupeau gave his daughter up
+and smoked his pipe quietly. Occasionally, however, when eating his
+dinner, he would snatch up a knife and wave it wildly in the air,
+crying out that he was dishonored and then, laying it down as
+suddenly, resumed eating his soup.
+
+In this great house, whence each month a girl or two took flight, this
+incident astonished no one. The Lorilleuxs were rather triumphant at
+the success of their prophecy. Lantier defended Nana.
+
+"Of course," he said, "she has done wrong, but bless my heart, what
+would you have? A girl as pretty as that could not live all her days
+in such poverty!"
+
+"You know nothing about it!" cried Mme Lorilleux one evening when they
+were all assembled in the room of the concierge. "Wooden Legs sold her
+daughter out and out. I know it! I have positive proof of what I say.
+The time that the old gentleman was seen on the stairs he was going to
+pay the money. Nana and he were seen together at the Ambigu the other
+night! I tell you, I know it!"
+
+They finished their coffee. This tale might or might not be true; it
+was not improbable, at all events. And after this it was circulated
+and generally believed in the _Quartier_ that Gervaise had sold
+her daughter.
+
+The clearstarcher, meanwhile, was going from bad to worse. She had
+been dismissed from Mme Fauconnier's and in the last few weeks had
+worked for eight laundresses, one after the other--dismissed from
+all for her untidiness.
+
+As she seemed to have lost all skill in ironing, she went out by the
+day to wash and by degrees was entrusted with only the roughest work.
+This hard labor did not tend to beautify her either. She continued to
+grow stouter and stouter in spite of her scanty food and hard labor.
+
+Her womanly pride and vanity had all departed. Lantier never seemed
+to see her when they met by chance, and she hardly noticed that the
+liaison which had stretched along for so many years had ended in a
+mutual disenchantment.
+
+Lantier had done wisely, so far as he was concerned, in counseling
+Virginie to open the kind of shop she had. He adored sweets and could
+have lived on pralines and gumdrops, sugarplums and chocolate.
+
+Sugared almonds were his especial delight. For a year his principal
+food was bonbons. He opened all the jars, boxes and drawers when he
+was left alone in the shop; and often, with five or six persons
+standing around, he would take off the cover of a jar on the counter
+and put in his hand and crunch down an almond. The cover was not put
+on again, and the jar was soon empty. It was a habit of his, they all
+said; besides, he was subject to a tickling in his throat!
+
+He talked a great deal to Poisson of an invention of his which was
+worth a fortune--an umbrella and hat in one; that is to say, a hat
+which, at the first drops of a shower, would expand into an umbrella.
+
+Lantier suggested to Virginie that she should have Gervaise come in
+once each week to wash the floors, shop and the rooms. This she did
+and received thirty sous each time. Gervaise appeared on Saturday
+mornings with her bucket and brush, without seeming to suffer a single
+pang at doing this menial work in the house where she had lived as
+mistress.
+
+One Saturday Gervaise had hard work. It had rained for three days, and
+all the mud of the streets seemed to have been brought into the shop.
+Virginie stood behind the counter with collar and cuffs trimmed with
+lace. Near her on a low chair lounged Lantier, and he was, as usual,
+eating candy.
+
+"Really, Madame Coupeau," cried Virginie, "can't you do better than
+that? You have left all the dirt in the corners. Don't you see? Oblige
+me by doing that over again."
+
+Gervaise obeyed. She went back to the corner and scrubbed it again.
+She was on her hands and knees, with her sleeves rolled up over her
+arms. Her old skirt clung close to her stout form, and the sweat
+poured down her face.
+
+"The more elbow grease she uses, the more she shines," said Lantier
+sententiously with his mouth full.
+
+Virginie, leaning back in her chair with the air of a princess,
+followed the progress of the work with half-closed eyes.
+
+"A little more to the right. Remember, those spots must all be taken
+out. Last Saturday, you know, I was not pleased."
+
+And then Lantier and Virginie fell into a conversation, while Gervaise
+crawled along the floor in the dirt at their feet.
+
+Mme Poisson enjoyed this, for her cat's eyes sparkled with malicious
+joy, and she glanced at Lantier with a smile. At last she was avenged
+for that mortification at the lavatory, which had for years weighed
+heavy on her soul.
+
+"By the way," said Lantier, addressing himself to Gervaise, "I saw
+Nana last night."
+
+Gervaise started to her feet with her brush in her hand.
+
+"Yes, I was coming down La Rue des Martyrs. In front of me was a young
+girl on the arm of an old gentleman. As I passed I glanced at her face
+and assure you that it was Nana. She was well dressed and looked
+happy."
+
+"Ah!" said Gervaise in a low, dull voice.
+
+Lantier, who had finished one jar, now began another.
+
+"What a girl that is!" he continued. "Imagine that she made me a sign
+to follow with the most perfect self-possession. She got rid of her
+old gentleman in a cafe and beckoned me to the door. She asked me to
+tell her about everybody."
+
+"Ah!" repeated Gervaise.
+
+She stood waiting. Surely this was not all. Her daughter must have
+sent her some especial message. Lantier ate his sugarplums.
+
+"I would not have looked at her," said Virginie. "I sincerely trust,
+if I should meet her, that she would not speak to me for, really,
+it would mortify me beyond expression. I am sorry for you, Madame
+Gervaise, but the truth is that Poisson arrests every day a dozen
+just such girls."
+
+Gervaise said nothing; her eyes were fixed on vacancy. She shook her
+head slowly, as if in reply to her own thoughts.
+
+"Pray make haste," exclaimed Virginie fretfully. "I do not care to
+have this scrubbing going on until midnight."
+
+Gervaise returned to her work. With her two hands clasped around the
+handle of the brush she pushed the water before her toward the door.
+After this she had only to rinse the floor after sweeping the dirty
+water into the gutter.
+
+When all was accomplished she stood before the counter waiting for
+her money. When Virginie tossed it toward her she did not take it up
+instantly.
+
+"Then she said nothing else?" Gervaise asked.
+
+"She?" Lantier exclaimed. "Who is she? Ah yes, I remember. Nana! No,
+she said nothing more."
+
+And Gervaise went away with her thirty sous in her hand, her skirts
+dripping and her shoes leaving the mark of their broad soles on the
+sidewalk.
+
+In the _Quartier_ all the women who drank like her took her part
+and declared she had been driven to intemperance by her daughter's
+misconduct. She, too, began to believe this herself and assumed at
+times a tragic air and wished she were dead. Unquestionably she had
+suffered from Nana's departure. A mother does not like to feel that
+her daughter will leave her for the first person who asks her to do
+so.
+
+But she was too thoroughly demoralized to care long, and soon she had
+but one idea: that Nana belonged to her. Had she not a right to her
+own property?
+
+She roamed the streets day after day, night after night, hoping to
+see the girl. That year half the _Quartier_ was being demolished. All
+one side of the Rue des Poissonniers lay flat on the ground. Lantier
+and Poisson disputed day after day on these demolitions. The one
+declared that the emperor wanted to build palaces and drive the lower
+classes out of Paris, while Poisson, white with rage, said the emperor
+would pull down the whole of Paris merely to give work to the people.
+
+Gervaise did not like the improvements, either, or the changes in
+the dingy _Quartier_, to which she was accustomed. It was, in fact,
+a little hard for her to see all these embellishments just when she
+was going downhill so fast over the piles of brick and mortar, while
+she was wandering about in search of Nana.
+
+She heard of her daughter several times. There are always plenty of
+people to tell you things you do not care to hear. She was told that
+Nana had left her elderly friend for the sake of some young fellow.
+
+She heard, too, that Nana had been seen at a ball in the Grand Salon,
+Rue de la Chapelle, and Coupeau and she began to frequent all these
+places, one after another, whenever they had the money to spend.
+
+But at the end of a month they had forgotten Nana and went for their
+own pleasure. They sat for hours with their elbows on a table, which
+shook with the movements of the dancers, amused by the sight.
+
+One November night they entered the Grand Salon, as much to get warm
+as anything else. Outside it was hailing, and the rooms were naturally
+crowded. They could not find a table, and they stood waiting until
+they could establish themselves. Coupeau was directly in the mouth of
+the passage, and a young man in a frock coat was thrown against him.
+The youth uttered an exclamation of disgust as he began to dust off
+his coat with his handkerchief. The blouse worn by Coupeau was
+assuredly none of the cleanest.
+
+"Look here, my good fellow," cried Coupeau angrily, "those airs
+are very unnecessary. I would have you to know that the blouse of
+a workingman can do your coat no harm if it has touched it!"
+
+The young man turned around and looked at Coupeau from head to foot.
+
+"Learn," continued the angry workman, "that the blouse is the only
+wear for a man!"
+
+Gervaise endeavored to calm her husband, who, however, tapped his
+ragged breast and repeated loudly:
+
+"The only wear for a man, I tell you!"
+
+The youth slipped away and was lost in the crowd.
+
+Coupeau tried to find him, but it was quite impossible; the crowd was
+too great. The orchestra was playing a quadrille, and the dancers were
+bringing up the dust from the floor in great clouds, which obscured
+the gas.
+
+"Look!" said Gervaise suddenly.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Look at that velvet bonnet!"
+
+Quite at the left there was a velvet bonnet, black with plumes,
+only too suggestive of a hearse. They watched these nodding plumes
+breathlessly.
+
+"Do you not know that hair?" murmured Gervaise hoarsely. "I am sure
+it is she!"
+
+In one second Coupeau was in the center of the crowd. Yes, it was
+Nana, and in what a costume! She wore a ragged silk dress, stained
+and torn. She had no shawl over her shoulders to conceal the fact that
+half the buttonholes on her dress were burst out. In spite of all her
+shabbiness the girl was pretty and fresh. Nana, of course, danced on
+unsuspiciously. Her airs and graces were beyond belief. She curtsied
+to the very ground and then in a twinkling threw her foot over her
+partner's head. A circle was formed, and she was applauded
+vociferously.
+
+At this moment Coupeau fell on his daughter.
+
+"Don't try and keep me back," he said, "for have her I will!"
+
+Nana turned and saw her father and mother.
+
+Coupeau discovered that his daughter's partner was the young man for
+whom he had been looking. Gervaise pushed him aside and walked up to
+Nana and gave her two cuffs on her ears. One sent the plumed hat on
+the side; the other left five red marks on that pale cheek. The
+orchestra played on. Nana neither wept nor moved.
+
+The dancers began to grow very angry. They ordered the Coupeau party
+to leave the room.
+
+"Go," said Gervaise, "and do not attempt to leave us, for so sure
+as you do you will be given in charge of a policeman."
+
+The young man had prudently disappeared.
+
+Nana's old life now began again, for after the girl had slept for
+twelve hours on a stretch, she was very gentle and sweet for a week.
+She wore a plain gown and a simple hat and declared she would like
+to work at home. She rose early and took a seat at her table by five
+o'clock the first morning and tried to roll her violet stems, but her
+fingers had lost their cunning in the six months in which they had
+been idle.
+
+Then the gluepot dried up; the petals and the paper were dusty and
+spotted; the mistress of the establishment came for her tools and
+materials and made more than one scene. Nana relapsed into utter
+indolence, quarreling with her mother from morning until night.
+Of course an end must come to this, so one fine evening the girl
+disappeared.
+
+The Lorilleuxs, who had been greatly amused by the repentance and
+return of their niece, now nearly died laughing. If she returned again
+they would advise the Coupeaus to put her in a cage like a canary.
+
+The Coupeaus pretended to be rather pleased, but in their hearts they
+raged, particularly as they soon learned that Nana was frequently seen
+in the _Quartier_. Gervaise declared this was done by the girl to
+annoy them.
+
+Nana adorned all the balls in the vicinity, and the Coupeaus knew that
+they could lay their hands on her at any time they chose, but they did
+not choose and they avoided meeting her.
+
+But one night, just as they were going to bed, they heard a rap on the
+door. It was Nana, who came to ask as coolly as possible if she could
+sleep there. What a state she was in! All rags and dirt. She devoured
+a crust of dried bread and fell asleep with a part of it in her
+hand. This continued for some time, the girl coming and going like a
+will-o'-the-wisp. Weeks and months would elapse without a sign from
+her, and then she would reappear without a word to say where she
+had been, sometimes in rags and sometimes well dressed. Finally her
+parents began to take these proceedings as a matter of course. She
+might come in, they said, or stay out, just as she pleased, provided
+she kept the door shut. Only one thing exasperated Gervaise now, and
+that was when her daughter appeared with a bonnet and feathers and
+a train. This she would not endure. When Nana came to her it must be
+as a simple workingwoman! None of this dearly bought finery should
+be exhibited there, for these trained dresses had created a great
+excitement in the house.
+
+One day Gervaise reproached her daughter violently for the life she
+led and finally, in her rage, took her by the shoulder and shook her.
+
+"Let me be!" cried the girl. "You are the last person to talk to me
+in that way. You did as you pleased. Why can't I do the same?"
+
+"What do you mean?" stammered the mother.
+
+"I have never said anything about it because it was none of my
+business, but do you think I did not know where you were when my
+father lay snoring? Let me alone. It was you who set me the example."
+
+Gervaise turned away pale and trembling, while Nana composed herself
+to sleep again.
+
+Coupeau's life was a very regular one--that is to say, he did not
+drink for six months and then yielded to temptation, which brought him
+up with a round turn and sent him to Sainte-Anne's. When he came out
+he did the same thing, so that in three years he was seven times at
+Sainte-Anne's, and each time he came out the fellow looked more broken
+and less able to stand another orgy.
+
+The poison had penetrated his entire system. He had grown very thin;
+his cheeks were hollow and his eyes inflamed. Those who knew his age
+shuddered as they saw him pass, bent and decrepit as a man of eighty.
+The trembling of his hands had so increased that some days he was
+obliged to use them both in raising his glass to his lips. This
+annoyed him intensely and seemed to be the only symptom of his failing
+health which disturbed him. He sometimes swore violently at these
+unruly members and at others sat for hours looking at these fluttering
+hands as if trying to discover by what strange mechanism they were
+moved. And one night Gervaise found him sitting in this way with great
+tears pouring down his withered cheeks.
+
+The last summer of his life was especially trying to Coupeau. His
+voice was entirely changed; he was deaf in one ear, and some days he
+could not see and was obliged to feel his way up and downstairs as
+if he were blind. He suffered from maddening headaches, and sudden
+pains would dart through his limbs, causing him to snatch at a chair
+for support. Sometimes after one of these attacks his arm would be
+paralyzed for twenty-four hours.
+
+He would lie in bed with even his head wrapped up, silent and
+moody, like some suffering animal. Then came incipient madness and
+fever--tearing everything to pieces that came in his way--or he would
+weep and moan, declaring that no one loved him, that he was a burden
+to his wife. One evening when his wife and daughter came in he was not
+in his bed; in his place lay the bolster carefully tucked in. They
+found him at last crouched on the floor under the bed, with his teeth
+chattering with cold and fear. He told them he had been attacked by
+assassins.
+
+The two women coaxed him back to bed as if he had been a baby.
+
+Coupeau knew but one remedy for all this, and that was a good stout
+morning dram. His memory had long since fled; his brain had softened.
+When Nana appeared after an absence of six weeks he thought she had
+been on an errand around the corner. She met him in the street, too,
+very often now, without fear, for he passed without recognizing her.
+One night in the autumn Nana went out, saying she wanted some baked
+pears from the fruiterer's. She felt the cold weather coming on, and
+she did not care to sit before a cold stove. The winter before she
+went out for two sous' worth of tobacco and came back in a month's
+time; they thought she would do the same now, but they were mistaken.
+Winter came and went, as did the spring, and even when June arrived
+they had seen and heard nothing of her.
+
+She was evidently comfortable somewhere, and the Coupeaus, feeling
+certain that she would never return, had sold her bed; it was very
+much in their way, and they could drink up the six francs it brought.
+
+One morning Virginie called to Gervaise as the latter passed the shop
+and begged her to come in and help a little, as Lantier had had two
+friends to supper the night before, and Gervaise washed the dishes
+while Lantier sat in the shop smoking. Presently he said:
+
+"Oh, Gervaise, I saw Nana the other night."
+
+Virginie, who was behind the counter, opening and shutting drawer
+after drawer, with a face that lengthened as she found each empty,
+shook her fist at him indignantly.
+
+She had begun to think he saw Nana very often. She did not speak, but
+Mme Lerat, who had just come in, said with a significant look:
+
+"And where did you see her?"
+
+"Oh, in a carriage," answered Lantier with a laugh. "And I was on the
+sidewalk." He turned toward Gervaise and went on:
+
+"Yes, she was in a carriage, dressed beautifully. I did not recognize
+her at first, but she kissed her hand to me. Her friend this time must
+be a vicomte at the least. She looked as happy as a queen."
+
+Gervaise wiped the plate in her hands, rubbing it long and carefully,
+though it had long since been dry. Virginie, with wrinkled brows,
+wondered how she could pay two notes which fell due the next day,
+while Lantier, fat and hearty from the sweets he had devoured, asked
+himself if these drawers and jars would be filled up again or if the
+ruin he anticipated was so near at hand that he would be compelled
+to pull up stakes at once. There was not another praline for him to
+crunch, not even a gumdrop.
+
+When Gervaise went back to her room she found Coupeau sitting on the
+side of the bed, weeping and moaning. She took a chair near by and
+looked at him without speaking.
+
+"I have news for you," she said at last. "Your daughter has been seen.
+She is happy and comfortable. Would that I were in her place!"
+
+Coupeau was looking down on the floor intently. He raised his head
+and said with an idiotic laugh:
+
+"Do as you please, my dear; don't let me be any hindrance to you.
+When you are dressed up you are not so bad looking after all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+POVERTY AND DEGRADATION
+
+
+The weather was intensely cold about the middle of January. Gervaise
+had not been able to pay her rent, due on the first. She had little
+or no work and consequently no food to speak of. The sky was dark and
+gloomy and the air heavy with the coming of a storm. Gervaise thought
+it barely possible that her husband might come in with a little money.
+After all, everything is possible, and he had said that he would work.
+Gervaise after a little, by dint of dwelling on this thought, had come
+to consider it a certainty. Yes, Coupeau would bring home some money,
+and they would have a good, hot, comfortable dinner. As to herself,
+she had given up trying to get work, for no one would have her. This
+did not much trouble her, however, for she had arrived at that point
+when the mere exertion of moving had become intolerable to her. She
+now lay stretched on the bed, for she was warmer there.
+
+Gervaise called it a bed. In reality it was only a pile of straw
+in the corner, for she had sold her bed and all her furniture. She
+occasionally swept the straw together with a broom, and, after all,
+it was neither dustier nor dirtier than everything else in the place.
+On this straw, therefore, Gervaise now lay with her eyes wide open.
+How long, she wondered, could people live without eating? She was not
+hungry, but there was a strange weight at the pit of her stomach. Her
+haggard eyes wandered about the room in search of anything she could
+sell. She vaguely wished someone would buy the spider webs which hung
+in all the corners. She knew them to be very good for cuts, but she
+doubted if they had any market value.
+
+Tired of this contemplation, she got up and took her one chair to
+the window and looked out into the dingy courtyard.
+
+Her landlord had been there that day and declared he would wait only
+one week for his money, and if it were not forthcoming he would turn
+them into the street. It drove her wild to see him stand in his heavy
+overcoat and tell her so coldly that he would pack her off at once.
+She hated him with a vindictive hatred, as she did her fool of a
+husband and the Lorilleuxs and Poissons. In fact, she hated everyone
+on that especial day.
+
+Unfortunately people can't live without eating, and before the woman's
+famished eyes floated visions of food. Not of dainty little dishes.
+She had long since ceased to care for those and ate all she could get
+without being in the least fastidious in regard to its quality. When
+she had a little money she bought a bullock's heart or a bit of cheese
+or some beans, and sometimes she begged from a restaurant and made
+a sort of panada of the crusts they gave her, which she cooked on a
+neighbor's stove. She was quite willing to dispute with a dog for a
+bone. Once the thought of such things would have disgusted her, but
+at that time she did not--for three days in succession--go without a
+morsel of food. She remembered how last week Coupeau had stolen a half
+loaf of bread and sold it, or rather exchanged it, for liquor.
+
+She sat at the window, looking at the pale sky, and finally fell
+asleep. She dreamed that she was out in a snowstorm and could not find
+her way home. She awoke with a start and saw that night was coming on.
+How long the days are when one's stomach is empty! She waited for
+Coupeau and the relief he would bring.
+
+The clock struck in the next room. Could it be possible? Was it only
+three? Then she began to cry. How could she ever wait until seven?
+After another half-hour of suspense she started up. Yes, they might
+say what they pleased, but she, at least, would try to borrow ten
+sous from the Lorilleuxs.
+
+There was a continual borrowing of small sums in this corridor during
+the winter, but no matter what was the emergency no one ever dreamed
+of applying to the Lorilleuxs. Gervaise summoned all her courage and
+rapped at the door.
+
+"Come in!" cried a sharp voice.
+
+How good it was there! Warm and bright with the glow of the forge. And
+Gervaise smelled the soup, too, and it made her feel faint and sick.
+
+"Ah, it is you, is it?" said Mme Lorilleux. "What do you want?"
+
+Gervaise hesitated. The application for ten sous stuck in her throat,
+because she saw Boche seated by the stove.
+
+"What do you want?" asked Lorilleux, in his turn.
+
+"Have you seen Coupeau?" stammered Gervaise. "I thought he was here."
+
+His sister answered with a sneer that they rarely saw Coupeau. They
+were not rich enough to offer him as many glasses of wine as he wanted
+in these days.
+
+Gervaise stammered out a disconnected sentence.
+
+He had promised to come home. She needed food; she needed money.
+
+A profound silence followed. Mme Lorilleux fanned her fire, and her
+husband bent more closely over his work, while Boche smiled with an
+expectant air.
+
+"If I could have ten sous," murmured Gervaise.
+
+The silence continued.
+
+"If you would lend them to me," said Gervaise, "I would give them back
+in the morning."
+
+Mme Lorilleux turned and looked her full in the face, thinking to
+herself that if she yielded once the next day it would be twenty sous,
+and who could tell where it would stop?
+
+"But, my dear," she cried, "you know we have no money and no prospect
+of any; otherwise, of course, we would oblige you."
+
+"Certainly," said Lorilleux, "the heart is willing, but the pockets
+are empty."
+
+Gervaise bowed her head, but she did not leave instantly. She looked
+at the gold wire on which her sister-in-law was working and at that in
+the hands of Lorilleux and thought that it would take a mere scrap to
+give her a good dinner. On that day the room was very dirty and filled
+with charcoal dust, but she saw it resplendent with riches like the
+shop of a money-changer, and she said once more in a low, soft voice:
+
+"I will bring back the ten sous. I will, indeed!" Tears were in her
+eyes, but she was determined not to say that she had eaten nothing
+for twenty-four hours.
+
+"I can't tell you how much I need it," she continued.
+
+The husband and wife exchanged a look. Wooden Legs begging at their
+door! Well! Well! Who would have thought it? Why had they not known it
+was she when they rashly called out, "Come in?" Really, they could not
+allow such people to cross their threshold; there was too much that
+was valuable in the room. They had several times distrusted Gervaise;
+she looked about so queerly, and now they would not take their eyes
+off her.
+
+Gervaise went toward Lorilleux as she spoke.
+
+"Take care!" he said roughly. "You will carry off some of the
+particles of gold on the soles of your shoes. It looks really as
+if you had greased them!"
+
+Gervaise drew back. She leaned against the _etagere_ for a moment
+and, seeing that her sister-in-law's eyes were fixed on her hands,
+she opened them and said in a gentle, weary voice--the voice of a
+woman who had ceased to struggle:
+
+"I have taken nothing. You can look for yourself."
+
+And she went away; the warmth of the place and the smell of the soup
+were unbearable.
+
+The Lorilleuxs shrugged their shoulders as the door closed. They
+hoped they had seen the last of her face. She had brought all her
+misfortunes on her own head, and she had, therefore, no right to
+expect any assistance from them. Boche joined in these animadversions,
+and all three considered themselves avenged for the blue shop and all
+the rest.
+
+"I know her!" said Mme Lorilleux. "If I had lent her the ten sous she
+wanted she would have spent it in liquor."
+
+Gervaise crawled down the corridor with slipshod shoes and slouching
+shoulders, but at her door she hesitated; she could not go in: she was
+afraid. She would walk up and down a little--that would keep her warm.
+As she passed she looked in at Father Bru, but to her surprise he was
+not there, and she asked herself with a pang of jealousy if anyone
+could possibly have asked him out to dine. When she reached the
+Bijards' she heard a groan. She went in.
+
+"What is the matter?" she said.
+
+The room was very clean and in perfect order. Lalie that very morning
+had swept and arranged everything. In vain did the cold blast of
+poverty blow through that chamber and bring with it dirt and disorder.
+Lalie was always there; she cleaned and scrubbed and gave to
+everything a look of gentility. There was little money but much
+cleanliness within those four walls.
+
+The two children were cutting out pictures in a corner, but Lalie was
+in bed, lying very straight and pale, with the sheet pulled over her
+chin.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked Gervaise anxiously.
+
+Lalie slowly lifted her white lids and tried to speak.
+
+"Nothing," she said faintly; "nothing, I assure you!" Then as her eyes
+closed she added:
+
+"I am only a little lazy and am taking my ease."
+
+But her face bore the traces of such frightful agony that Gervaise
+fell on her knees by the side of the bed. She knew that the child
+had had a cough for a month, and she saw the blood trickling from
+the corners of her mouth.
+
+"It is not my fault," Lalie murmured. "I thought I was strong enough,
+and I washed the floor. I could not finish the windows though.
+Everything but those are clean. But I was so tired that I was obliged
+to lie down----"
+
+She interrupted herself to say:
+
+"Please see that my children are not cutting themselves with the
+scissors."
+
+She started at the sound of a heavy step on the stairs. Her father
+noisily pushed open the door. As usual he had drunk too much, and
+in his eyes blazed the lurid flames kindled by alcohol.
+
+When he saw Lalie lying down he walked to the corner and took up the
+long whip, from which he slowly unwound the lash.
+
+"This is a good joke!" he said. "The idea of your daring to go to bed
+at this hour. Come, up with you!"
+
+He snapped the whip over the bed, and the child murmured softly:
+
+"Do not strike me, Papa. I am sure you will be sorry if you do. Do not
+strike me!"
+
+"Up with you!" he cried. "Up with you!"
+
+Then she answered faintly:
+
+"I cannot, for I am dying."
+
+Gervaise had snatched the whip from Bijard, who stood with his under
+jaw dropped, glaring at his daughter. What could the little fool mean?
+Whoever heard of a child dying like that when she had not even been
+sick? Oh, she was lying!
+
+"You will see that I am telling you the truth," she replied. "I did
+not tell you as long as I could help it. Be kind to me now, Papa, and
+say good-by as if you loved me."
+
+Bijard passed his hand over his eyes. She did look very strangely--her
+face was that of a grown woman. The presence of death in that cramped
+room sobered him suddenly. He looked around with the air of a man who
+had been suddenly awakened from a dream. He saw the two little ones
+clean and happy and the room neat and orderly.
+
+He fell into a chair.
+
+"Dear little mother!" he murmured. "Dear little mother!"
+
+This was all he said, but it was very sweet to Lalie, who had never
+been spoiled by overpraise. She comforted him. She told him how
+grieved she was to go away and leave him before she had entirely
+brought up her children. He would watch over them, would he not? And
+in her dying voice she gave him some little details in regard to their
+clothes. He--the alcohol having regained its power--listened with
+round eyes of wonder.
+
+After a long silence Lalie spoke again:
+
+"We owe four francs and seven sous to the baker. He must be paid.
+Madame Goudron has an iron that belongs to us; you must not forget it.
+This evening I was not able to make the soup, but there are bread and
+cold potatoes."
+
+As long as she breathed the poor little mite continued to be the
+mother of the family. She died because her breast was too small to
+contain so great a heart, and that he lost this precious treasure
+was entirely her father's fault. He, wretched creature, had kicked
+her mother to death and now, just as surely, murdered his daughter.
+
+Gervaise tried to keep back her tears. She held Lalie's hands, and
+as the bedclothes slipped away she rearranged them. In doing so she
+caught a glimpse of the poor little figure. The sight might have drawn
+tears from a stone. Lalie wore only a tiny chemise over her bruised
+and bleeding flesh; marks of a lash striped her sides; a livid spot
+was on her right arm, and from head to foot she was one bruise.
+
+Gervaise was paralyzed at the sight. She wondered, if there were a God
+above, how He could have allowed the child to stagger under so heavy
+a cross.
+
+"Madame Coupeau," murmured the child, trying to draw the sheet over
+her. She was ashamed, ashamed for her father.
+
+Gervaise could not stay there. The child was fast sinking. Her eyes
+were fixed on her little ones, who sat in the corner, still cutting
+out their pictures. The room was growing dark, and Gervaise fled from
+it. Ah, what an awful thing life was! And how gladly would she throw
+herself under the wheels of an omnibus, if that might end it!
+
+Almost unconsciously Gervaise took her way to the shop where her
+husband worked or, rather, pretended to work. She would wait for him
+and get the money before he had a chance to spend it.
+
+It was a very cold corner where she stood. The sounds of the carriages
+and footsteps were strangely muffled by reason of the fast-falling
+snow. Gervaise stamped her feet to keep them from freezing. The people
+who passed offered few distractions, for they hurried by with their
+coat collars turned up to their ears. But Gervaise saw several women
+watching the door of the factory quite as anxiously as herself--they
+were wives who, like herself, probably wished to get hold of a portion
+of their husbands' wages. She did not know them, but it required no
+introduction to understand their business.
+
+The door of the factory remained firmly shut for some time. Then it
+opened to allow the egress of one workman; then two, three, followed,
+but these were probably those who, well behaved, took their wages home
+to their wives, for they neither retreated nor started when they saw
+the little crowd. One woman fell on a pale little fellow and, plunging
+her hand into his pocket, carried off every sou of her husband's
+earnings, while he, left without enough to pay for a pint of wine,
+went off down the street almost weeping.
+
+Some other men appeared, and one turned back to warn a comrade, who
+came gamely and fearlessly out, having put his silver pieces in his
+shoes. In vain did his wife look for them in his pockets; in vain
+did she scold and coax--he had no money, he declared.
+
+Then came another noisy group, elbowing each other in their haste to
+reach a cabaret, where they could drink away their week's wages. These
+fellows were followed by some shabby men who were swearing under their
+breath at the trifle they had received, having been tipsy and absent
+more than half the week.
+
+But the saddest sight of all was the grief of a meek little woman in
+black, whose husband, a tall, good-looking fellow, pushed her roughly
+aside and walked off down the street with his boon companions, leaving
+her to go home alone, which she did, weeping her very heart out as she
+went.
+
+Gervaise still stood watching the entrance. Where was Coupeau? She
+asked some of the men, who teased her by declaring that he had just
+gone by the back door. She saw by this time that Coupeau had lied to
+her, that he had not been at work that day. She also saw that there
+was no dinner for her. There was not a shadow of hope--nothing but
+hunger and darkness and cold.
+
+She toiled up La Rue des Poissonniers when she suddenly heard
+Coupeau's voice and, glancing in at the window of a wineshop, she
+saw him drinking with Mes-Bottes, who had had the luck to marry
+the previous summer a woman with some money. He was now, therefore,
+well clothed and fed and altogether a happy mortal and had Coupeau's
+admiration. Gervaise laid her hands on her husband's shoulders as
+he left the cabaret.
+
+"I am hungry," she said softly.
+
+"Hungry, are you? Well then, eat your fist and keep the other for
+tomorrow."
+
+"Shall I steal a loaf of bread?" she asked in a dull, dreary tone.
+
+Mes-Bottes smoothed his chin and said in a conciliatory voice:
+
+"No, no! Don't do that; it is against the law. But if a woman
+manages----"
+
+Coupeau interrupted him with a coarse laugh.
+
+Yes, a woman, if she had any sense, could always get along, and it
+was her own fault if she starved.
+
+And the two men walked on toward the outer boulevard. Gervaise
+followed them. Again she said:
+
+"I am hungry. You know I have had nothing to eat. You must find me
+something."
+
+He did not answer, and she repeated her words in a tone of agony.
+
+"Good God!" he exclaimed, turning upon her furiously. "What can I do?
+I have nothing. Be off with you, unless you want to be beaten."
+
+He lifted his fist; she recoiled and said with set teeth:
+
+"Very well then; I will go and find some man who has a sou."
+
+Coupeau pretended to consider this an excellent joke. Yes of course
+she could make a conquest; by gaslight she was still passably
+goodlooking. If she succeeded he advised her to dine at the Capucin,
+where there was very good eating.
+
+She turned away with livid lips; he called after her:
+
+"Bring some dessert with you, for I love cake. And perhaps you can
+induce your friend to give me an old coat, for I swear it is cold
+tonight."
+
+Gervaise, with this infernal mirth ringing in her ears, hurried down
+the street. She was determined to take this desperate step. She had
+only a choice between that and theft, and she considered that she
+had a right to dispose of herself as she pleased. The question of
+right and wrong did not present itself very clearly to her eyes.
+"When one is starving is hardly the time," she said to herself, "to
+philosophize." She walked slowly up and down the boulevard. This part
+of Paris was crowded now with new buildings, between whose sculptured
+facades ran narrow lanes leading to haunts of squalid misery, which
+were cheek by jowl with splendor and wealth.
+
+It seemed strange to Gervaise that among this crowd who elbowed her
+there was not one good Christian to divine her situation and slip some
+sous into her hand. Her head was dizzy, and her limbs would hardly
+bear her weight. At this hour ladies with hats and well-dressed
+gentlemen who lived in these fine new houses were mingled with the
+people--with the men and women whose faces were pale and sickly from
+the vitiated air of the workshops in which they passed their lives.
+Another day of toil was over, but the days came too often and were
+too long. One hardly had time to turn over in one's sleep when the
+everlasting grind began again.
+
+Gervaise went with the crowd. No one looked at her, for the men were
+all hurrying home to their dinner. Suddenly she looked up and beheld
+the Hotel Boncœur. It was empty, the shutters and doors covered with
+placards and the whole facade weather-stained and decaying. It was
+there in that hotel that the seeds of her present life had been sown.
+She stood still and looked up at the window of the room she had
+occupied and recalled her youth passed with Lantier and the manner
+in which he had left her. But she was young then and soon recovered
+from the blow. That was twenty years ago, and now what was she?
+
+The sight of the place made her sick, and she turned toward
+Montmartre. She passed crowds of workwomen with little parcels in
+their hands and children who had been sent to the baker's, carrying
+four-pound loaves of bread as tall as themselves, which looked like
+shining brown dolls.
+
+By degrees the crowd dispersed, and Gervaise was almost alone.
+Everyone was at dinner. She thought how delicious it would be to lie
+down and never rise again--to feel that all toil was over. And this
+was the end of her life! Gervaise, amid the pangs of hunger, thought
+of some of the fete days she had known and remembered that she had not
+always been miserable. Once she was pretty, fair and fresh. She had
+been a kind and admired mistress in her shop. Gentlemen came to it
+only to see her, and she vaguely wondered where all this youth and
+this beauty had fled.
+
+Again she looked up; she had reached the abattoirs, which were now
+being torn down; the fronts were taken away, showing the dark holes
+within, the very stones of which reeked with blood. Farther on was
+the hospital with its high, gray walls, with two wings opening out
+like a huge fan. A door in the wall was the terror of the whole
+_Quartier_--the Door of the Dead, it was called--through which
+all the bodies were carried.
+
+She hurried past this solid oak door and went down to the railroad
+bridge, under which a train had just passed, leaving in its rear
+a floating cloud of smoke. She wished she were on that train which
+would take her into the country, and she pictured to herself open
+spaces and the fresh air and expanse of blue sky; perhaps she could
+live a new life there.
+
+As she thought this her weary eyes began to puzzle out in the dim
+twilight the words on a printed handbill pasted on one of the pillars
+of the arch. She read one--an advertisement offering fifty francs for
+a lost dog. Someone must have loved the creature very much.
+
+Gervaise turned back again. The street lamps were being lit and
+defined long lines of streets and avenues. The restaurants were all
+crowded, and people were eating and drinking. Before the Assommoir
+stood a crowd waiting their turn and room within, and as a respectable
+tradesman passed he said with a shake of the head that many a man
+would be drunk that night in Paris. And over this scene hung the dark
+sky, low and clouded.
+
+Gervaise wished she had a few sous: she would, in that case, have gone
+into this place and drunk until she ceased to feel hungry, and through
+the window she watched the still with an angry consciousness that all
+her misery and all her pain came from that. If she had never touched
+a drop of liquor all might have been so different.
+
+She started from her reverie; this was the hour of which she must
+take advantage. Men had dined and were comparatively amiable. She
+looked around her and toward the trees where--under the leafless
+branches--she saw more than one female figure. Gervaise watched them,
+determined to do what they did. Her heart was in her throat; it seemed
+to her that she was dreaming a bad dream.
+
+She stood for some fifteen minutes; none of the men who passed looked
+at her. Finally she moved a little and spoke to one who, with his
+hands in his pockets, was whistling as he walked.
+
+"Sir," she said in a low voice, "please listen to me."
+
+The man looked at her from head to foot and went on whistling louder
+than before.
+
+Gervaise grew bolder. She forgot everything except the pangs of
+hunger. The women under the trees walked up and down with the
+regularity of wild animals in a cage.
+
+"Sir," she said again, "please listen."
+
+But the man went on. She walked toward the Hotel Boncœur again,
+past the hospital, which was now brilliantly lit. There she turned
+and went back over the same ground--the dismal ground between the
+slaughterhouses and the place where the sick lay dying. With these
+two places she seemed to feel bound by some mysterious tie.
+
+"Sir, please listen!"
+
+She saw her shadow on the ground as she stood near a street lamp. It
+was a grotesque shadow--grotesque because of her ample proportions.
+Her limp had become, with time and her additional weight, a very
+decided deformity, and as she moved the lengthening shadow of herself
+seemed to be creeping along the sides of the houses with bows and
+curtsies of mock reverence. Never before had she realized the change
+in herself. She was fascinated by this shadow. It was very droll, she
+thought, and she wondered if the men did not think so too.
+
+"Sir, please listen!"
+
+It was growing late. Man after man, in a beastly state of
+intoxication, reeled past her; quarrels and disputes filled the air.
+
+Gervaise walked on, half asleep. She was conscious of little except
+that she was starving. She wondered where her daughter was and what
+she was eating, but it was too much trouble to think, and she shivered
+and crawled on. As she lifted her face she felt the cutting wind,
+accompanied by the snow, fine and dry, like gravel. The storm had
+come.
+
+People were hurrying past her, but she saw one man walking slowly.
+She went toward him.
+
+"Sir, please listen!"
+
+The man stopped. He did not seem to notice what she said but extended
+his hand and murmured in a low voice:
+
+"Charity, if you please!"
+
+The two looked at each other. Merciful heavens! It was Father Bru
+begging and Mme Coupeau doing worse. They stood looking at each
+other--equals in misery. The aged workman had been trying to make up
+his mind all the evening to beg, and the first person he stopped was
+a woman as poor as himself! This was indeed the irony of fate. Was it
+not a pity to have toiled for fifty years and then to beg his bread?
+To have been one of the most flourishing laundresses in Paris and then
+to make her bed in the gutter? They looked at each other once more,
+and without a word each went their own way through the fast-falling
+snow, which blinded Gervaise as she struggled on, the wind wrapping
+her thin skirts around her legs so that she could hardly walk.
+
+Suddenly an absolute whirlwind struck her and bore her breathless
+and helpless along--she did not even know in what direction. When at
+last she was able to open her eyes she could see nothing through the
+blinding snow, but she heard a step and saw the outlines of a man's
+figure. She snatched him by the blouse.
+
+"Sir," she said, "please listen."
+
+The man turned. It was Goujet.
+
+Ah, what had she done to be thus tortured and humiliated? Was God in
+heaven an angry God always? This was the last dreg of bitterness in
+her cup. She saw her shadow: her limp, she felt, made her walk like an
+intoxicated woman, which was indeed hard, when she had not swallowed
+a drop.
+
+Goujet looked at her while the snow whitened his yellow beard.
+
+"Come!" he said.
+
+And he walked on, she following him. Neither spoke.
+
+Poor Mme Goujet had died in October of acute rheumatism, and her son
+continued to reside in the same apartment. He had this night been
+sitting with a sick friend.
+
+He entered, lit a lamp and turned toward Gervaise, who stood humbly
+on the threshold.
+
+"Come in!" he said in a low voice, as if his mother could have heard
+him.
+
+The first room was that of Mme Goujet, which was unchanged since her
+death. Near the window stood her frame, apparently ready for the old
+lady. The bed was carefully made, and she could have slept there had
+she returned from the cemetery to spend a night with her son. The room
+was clean, sweet and orderly.
+
+"Come in," repeated Goujet.
+
+Gervaise entered with the air of a woman who is startled at finding
+herself in a respectable place. He was pale and trembling. They
+crossed his mother's room softly, and when Gervaise stood within
+his own he closed the door.
+
+It was the same room in which he had lived ever since she knew
+him--small and almost virginal in its simplicity. Gervaise dared not
+move.
+
+Goujet snatched her in his arms, but she pushed him away faintly.
+
+The stove was still hot, and a dish was on the top of it. Gervaise
+looked toward it. Goujet understood. He placed the dish on the table,
+poured her out some wine and cut a slice of bread.
+
+"Thank you," she said. "How good you are!"
+
+She trembled to that degree that she could hardly hold her fork.
+Hunger gave her eyes the fierceness of a famished beast and to her
+head the tremulous motion of senility. After eating a potato she burst
+into tears but continued to eat, with the tears streaming down her
+cheeks and her chin quivering.
+
+"Will you have some more bread?" he asked. She said no; she said yes;
+she did not know what she said.
+
+And he stood looking at her in the clear light of the lamp. How old
+and shabby she was! The heat was melting the snow on her hair and
+clothing, and water was dripping from all her garments. Her hair was
+very gray and roughened by the wind. Where was the pretty white throat
+he so well remembered? He recalled the days when he first knew her,
+when her skin was so delicate and she stood at her table, briskly
+moving the hot irons to and fro. He thought of the time when she had
+come to the forge and of the joy with which he would have welcomed
+her then to his room. And now she was there!
+
+She finished her bread amid great silent tears and then rose to her
+feet.
+
+Goujet took her hand.
+
+"I love you, Madame Gervaise; I love you still," he cried.
+
+"Do not say that," she exclaimed, "for it is impossible."
+
+He leaned toward her.
+
+"Will you allow me to kiss you?" he asked respectfully.
+
+She did not know what to say, so great was her emotion.
+
+He kissed her gravely and solemnly and then pressed his lips upon
+her gray hair. He had never kissed anyone since his mother's death,
+and Gervaise was all that remained to him of the past.
+
+He turned away and, throwing himself on his bed, sobbed aloud.
+Gervaise could not endure this. She exclaimed:
+
+"I love you, Monsieur Goujet, and I understand. Farewell!"
+
+And she rushed through Mme Goujet's room and then through the street
+to her home. The house was all dark, and the arched door into the
+courtyard looked like huge, gaping jaws. Could this be the house where
+she once desired to reside? Had she been deaf in those days, not to
+have heard that wail of despair which pervaded the place from top to
+bottom? From the day when she first set her foot within the house she
+had steadily gone downhill.
+
+Yes, it was a frightful way to live--so many people herded together,
+to become the prey of cholera or vice. She looked at the courtyard
+and fancied it a cemetery surrounded by high walls. The snow lay white
+within it. She stepped over the usual stream from the dyer's, but
+this time the stream was black and opened for itself a path through
+the white snow. The stream was the color of her thoughts. But she
+remembered when both were rosy.
+
+As she toiled up the six long flights in the darkness she laughed
+aloud. She recalled her old dream--to work quietly, have plenty to
+eat, a little home to herself, where she could bring up her children,
+never to be beaten, and to die in her bed! It was droll how things had
+turned out. She worked no more; she had nothing to eat; she lived amid
+dirt and disorder. Her daughter had gone to the bad, and her husband
+beat her whenever he pleased. As for dying in her bed, she had none.
+Should she throw herself out of the window and find one on the
+pavement below?
+
+She had not been unreasonable in her wishes, surely. She had not
+asked of heaven an income of thirty thousand francs or a carriage
+and horses. This was a queer world! And then she laughed again as
+she remembered that she had once said that after she had worked for
+twenty years she would retire into the country.
+
+Yes, she would go into the country, for she should soon have her
+little green corner in Pere-Lachaise.
+
+Her poor brain was disturbed. She had bidden an eternal farewell to
+Goujet. They would never see each other again. All was over between
+them--love and friendship too.
+
+As she passed the Bijards' she looked in and saw Lalie lying dead,
+happy and at peace. It was well with the child.
+
+"She is lucky," muttered Gervaise.
+
+At this moment she saw a gleam of light under the undertaker's door.
+She threw it wide open with a wild desire that he should take her as
+well as Lalie. Bazonge had come in that night more tipsy than usual
+and had thrown his hat and cloak in the corner, while he lay in the
+middle of the floor.
+
+He started up and called out:
+
+"Shut that door! And don't stand there--it is too cold. What do you
+want?"
+
+Then Gervaise, with arms outstretched, not knowing or caring what she
+said, began to entreat him with passionate vehemence:
+
+"Oh, take me!" she cried. "I can bear it no longer. Take me, I implore
+you!"
+
+And she knelt before him, a lurid light blazing in her haggard eyes.
+
+Father Bazonge, with garments stained by the dust of the cemetery,
+seemed to her as glorious as the sun. But the old man, yet half
+asleep, rubbed his eyes and could not understand her.
+
+"What are you talking about?" he muttered.
+
+"Take me," repeated Gervaise, more earnestly than before. "Do you
+remember one night when I rapped on the partition? Afterward I said
+I did not, but I was stupid then and afraid. But I am not afraid now.
+Here, take my hands--they are not cold with terror. Take me and put
+me to sleep, for I have but this one wish now."
+
+Bazonge, feeling that it was not proper to argue with a lady, said:
+
+"You are right. I have buried three women today, who would each have
+given me a jolly little sum out of gratitude, if they could have put
+their hands in their pockets. But you see, my dear woman, it is not
+such an easy thing you are asking of me."
+
+"Take me!" cried Gervaise. "Take me! I want to go away!"
+
+"But there is a certain little operation first, you know----" And he
+pretended to choke and rolled up his eyes.
+
+Gervaise staggered to her feet. He, too, rejected her and would have
+nothing to do with her. She crawled into her room and threw herself on
+her straw. She was sorry she had eaten anything and delayed the work
+of starvation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+THE HOSPITAL
+
+
+The next day Gervaise received ten francs from her son Etienne, who
+had steady work. He occasionally sent her a little money, knowing that
+there was none too much of that commodity in his poor mother's pocket.
+
+She cooked her dinner and ate it alone, for Coupeau did not appear,
+nor did she hear a word of his whereabouts for nearly a week. Finally
+a printed paper was given her which frightened her at first, but
+she was soon relieved to find that it simply conveyed to her the
+information that her husband was at Sainte-Anne's again.
+
+Gervaise was in no way disturbed. Coupeau knew the way back well
+enough; he would return in due season. She soon heard that he and
+Mes-Bottes had spent the whole week in dissipation, and she even felt
+a little angry that they had not seen fit to offer her a glass of wine
+with all their feasting and carousing.
+
+On Sunday, as Gervaise had a nice little repast ready for the evening,
+she decided that an excursion would give her an appetite. The letter
+from the asylum stared her in the face and worried her. The snow had
+melted; the sky was gray and soft, and the air was fresh. She started
+at noon, as the days were now short and Sainte-Anne's was a long
+distance off, but as there were a great many people in the street,
+she was amused.
+
+When she reached the hospital she heard a strange story. It seems that
+Coupeau--how, no one could say--had escaped from the hospital and had
+been found under the bridge. He had thrown himself over the parapet,
+declaring that armed men were driving him with the point of their
+bayonets.
+
+One of the nurses took Gervaise up the stairs. At the head she heard
+terrific howls which froze the marrow in her bones.
+
+"It is he!" said the nurse.
+
+"He? Whom do you mean?"
+
+"I mean your husband. He has gone on like that ever since day before
+yesterday, and he dances all the time too. You will see!"
+
+Ah, what a sight it was! The cell was cushioned from the floor to the
+ceiling, and on the floor were mattresses on which Coupeau danced and
+howled in his ragged blouse. The sight was terrific. He threw himself
+wildly against the window and then to the other side of the cell,
+shaking hands as if he wished to break them off and fling them
+in defiance at the whole world. These wild motions are sometimes
+imitated, but no one who has not seen the real and terrible sight
+can imagine its horror.
+
+"What is it? What is it?" gasped Gervaise.
+
+A house surgeon, a fair and rosy youth, was sitting, calmly taking
+notes. The case was a peculiar one and had excited a great deal of
+attention among the physicians attached to the hospital.
+
+"You can stay awhile," he said, "but keep very quiet. He will not
+recognize you, however."
+
+Coupeau, in fact, did not seem to notice his wife, who had not yet
+seen his face. She went nearer. Was that really he? She never would
+have known him with his bloodshot eyes and distorted features. His
+skin was so hot that the air was heated around him and was as if it
+were varnished--shining and damp with perspiration. He was dancing,
+it is true, but as if on burning plowshares; not a motion seemed to
+be voluntary.
+
+Gervaise went to the young surgeon, who was beating a tune on the
+back of his chair.
+
+"Will he get well, sir?" she said.
+
+The surgeon shook his head.
+
+"What is he saying? Hark! He is talking now."
+
+"Just be quiet, will you?" said the young man. "I wish to listen."
+
+Coupeau was speaking fast and looking all about, as if he were
+examining the underbrush in the Bois de Vincennes.
+
+"Where is it now?" he exclaimed and then, straightening himself,
+he looked off into the distance.
+
+"It is a fair," he exclaimed, "and lanterns in the trees, and the
+water is running everywhere: fountains, cascades and all sorts of
+things."
+
+He drew a long breath, as if enjoying the delicious freshness of
+the air.
+
+By degrees, however, his features contracted again with pain, and
+he ran quickly around the wall of his cell.
+
+"More trickery," he howled. "I knew it!"
+
+He started back with a hoarse cry; his teeth chattered with terror.
+
+"No, I will not throw myself over! All that water would drown me!
+No, I will not!"
+
+"I am going," said Gervaise to the surgeon. "I cannot stay another
+moment."
+
+She was very pale. Coupeau kept up his infernal dance while she
+tottered down the stairs, followed by his hoarse voice.
+
+How good it was to breathe the fresh air outside!
+
+That evening everyone in the huge house in which Coupeau had lived
+talked of his strange disease. The concierge, crazy to hear the
+details, condescended to invite Gervaise to take a glass of cordial,
+forgetting that he had turned a cold shoulder upon her for many weeks.
+
+Mme Lorilleux and Mme Poisson were both there also. Boche had heard
+of a cabinetmaker who had danced the polka until he died. He had drunk
+absinthe.
+
+Gervaise finally, not being able to make them understand her
+description, asked for the table to be moved and there, in the center
+of the loge, imitated her husband, making frightful leaps and horrible
+contortions.
+
+"Yes, that was what he did!"
+
+And then everybody said it was not possible that man could keep up
+such violent exercise for even three hours.
+
+Gervaise told them to go and see if they did not believe her. But
+Mme Lorilleux declared that nothing would induce her to set foot
+within Sainte-Anne's, and Virginie, whose face had grown longer and
+longer with each successive week that the shop got deeper into debt,
+contented herself with murmuring that life was not always gay--in
+fact, in her opinion, it was a pretty dismal thing. As the wine was
+finished, Gervaise bade them all good night. When she was not speaking
+she had sat with fixed, distended eyes. Coupeau was before them all
+the time.
+
+The next day she said to herself when she rose that she would never go
+to the hospital again; she could do no good. But as midday arrived she
+could stay away no longer and started forth, without a thought of the
+length of the walk, so great were her mingled curiosity and anxiety.
+
+She was not obliged to ask a question; she heard the frightful sounds
+at the very foot of the stairs. The keeper, who was carrying a cup of
+tisane across the corridor, stopped when he saw her.
+
+"He keeps it up well!" he said.
+
+She went in but stood at the door, as she saw there were people there.
+The young surgeon had surrendered his chair to an elderly gentleman
+wearing several decorations. He was the chief physician of the
+hospital, and his eyes were like gimlets.
+
+Gervaise tried to see Coupeau over the bald head of that gentleman.
+Her husband was leaping and dancing with undiminished strength. The
+perspiration poured more constantly from his brow now; that was all.
+His feet had worn holes in the mattress with his steady tramp from
+window to wall.
+
+Gervaise asked herself why she had come back. She had been accused the
+evening before of exaggerating the picture, but she had not made it
+strong enough. The next time she imitated him she could do it better.
+She listened to what the physicians were saying: the house surgeon
+was giving the details of the night with many words which she did not
+understand, but she gathered that Coupeau had gone on in the same way
+all night. Finally he said this was the wife of the patient. Wherefore
+the surgeon in chief turned and interrogated her with the air of a
+police judge.
+
+"Did this man's father drink?"
+
+"A little, sir. Just as everybody does. He fell from a roof when he
+had been drinking and was killed."
+
+"Did his mother drink?"
+
+"Yes sir--that is, a little now and then. He had a brother who died
+in convulsions, but the others are very healthy."
+
+The surgeon looked at her and said coldly:
+
+"You drink too?"
+
+Gervaise attempted to defend herself and deny the accusation.
+
+"You drink," he repeated, "and see to what it leads. Someday you
+will be here, and like this."
+
+She leaned against the wall, utterly overcome. The physician turned
+away. He knelt on the mattress and carefully watched Coupeau; he
+wished to see if his feet trembled as much as his hands. His
+extremities vibrated as if on wires. The disease was creeping on,
+and the peculiar shivering seemed to be under the skin--it would
+ease for a minute or two and then begin again. The belly and the
+shoulders trembled like water just on the point of boiling.
+
+Coupeau seemed to suffer more than the evening before. His complaints
+were curious and contradictory. A million pins were pricking him.
+There was a weight under the skin; a cold, wet animal was crawling
+over him. Then there were other creatures on his shoulder.
+
+"I am thirsty," he groaned; "so thirsty."
+
+The house surgeon took a glass of lemonade from a tray and gave it to
+him. He seized the glass in both hands, drank one swallow, spilling
+the whole of it at the same time. He at once spat it out in disgust.
+
+"It is brandy!" he exclaimed.
+
+Then the surgeon, on a sign from his chief, gave him some water, and
+Coupeau did the same thing.
+
+"It is brandy!" he cried. "Brandy! Oh, my God!"
+
+For twenty-four hours he had declared that everything he touched to
+his lips was brandy, and with tears begged for something else, for it
+burned his throat, he said. Beef tea was brought to him; he refused
+it, saying it smelled of alcohol. He seemed to suffer intense and
+constant agony from the poison which he vowed was in the air. He asked
+why people were allowed to rub matches all the time under his nose,
+to choke him with their vile fumes.
+
+The physicians watched Coupeau with care and interest. The phantoms
+which had hitherto haunted him by night now appeared before him at
+midday. He saw spiders' webs hanging from the wall as large as the
+sails of a man-of-war. Then these webs changed to nets, whose meshes
+were constantly contracting only to enlarge again. These nets held
+black balls, and they, too, swelled and shrank. Suddenly he cried out:
+
+"The rats! Oh, the rats!"
+
+The balls had been transformed to rats. The vile beasts found their
+way through the meshes of the nets and swarmed over the mattress and
+then disappeared as suddenly as they came.
+
+The rats were followed by a monkey, who went in and came out from the
+wall, each time so near his face that Coupeau started back in disgust.
+All this vanished in the twinkling of an eye. He apparently thought
+the walls were unsteady and about to fall, for he uttered shriek after
+shriek of agony.
+
+"Fire! Fire!" he screamed. "They can't stand long. They are shaking!
+Fire! Fire! The whole heavens are bright with the light! Help! Help!"
+
+His shrieks ended in a convulsed murmur. He foamed at the mouth. The
+surgeon in chief turned to the assistant.
+
+"You keep the temperature at forty degrees?" he asked.
+
+"Yes sir."
+
+A dead silence ensued. Then the surgeon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Well, continue the same treatment--beef tea, milk, lemonade and
+quinine as directed. Do not leave him, and send for me if there is
+any change."
+
+And he left the room, Gervaise following close at his heels, seeking
+an opportunity of asking him if there was no hope. But he stalked down
+the corridor with so much dignity that she dared not approach him.
+
+She stood for a moment, undecided whether she should go back to
+Coupeau or not, but hearing him begin again the lamentable cry for
+water:
+
+"Water, not brandy!"
+
+She hurried on, feeling that she could endure no more that day. In the
+streets the galloping horses made her start with a strange fear that
+all the inmates of Sainte-Anne's were at her heels. She remembered
+what the physician had said, with what terrors he had threatened her,
+and she wondered if she already had the disease.
+
+When she reached the house the concierge and all the others were
+waiting and called her into the loge.
+
+Was Coupeau still alive? they asked.
+
+Boche seemed quite disturbed at her answer, as he had made a bet
+that he would not live twenty-four hours. Everyone was astonished.
+Mme Lorilleux made a mental calculation:
+
+"Sixty hours," she said. "His strength is extraordinary."
+
+Then Boche begged Gervaise to show them once more what Coupeau did.
+
+The demand became general, and it was pointed out to her that she
+ought not to refuse, for there were two neighbors there who had not
+seen her representation the night previous and who had come in
+expressly to witness it.
+
+They made a space in the center of the room, and a shiver of
+expectation ran through the little crowd.
+
+Gervaise was very reluctant. She was really afraid--afraid of making
+herself ill. She finally made the attempt but drew back again hastily.
+
+No, she could not; it was quite impossible. Everyone was disappointed,
+and Virginie went away.
+
+Then everyone began to talk of the Poissons. A warrant had been
+served on them the night before. Poisson was to lose his place. As to
+Lantier, he was hovering around a woman who thought of taking the shop
+and meant to sell hot tripe. Lantier was in luck, as usual.
+
+As they talked someone caught sight of Gervaise and pointed her out to
+the others. She was at the very back of the loge, her feet and hands
+trembling, imitating Coupeau, in fact. They spoke to her. She stared
+wildly about, as if awaking from a dream, and then left the room.
+
+The next day she left the house at noon, as she had done before. And
+as she entered Sainte-Anne's she heard the same terrific sounds.
+
+When she reached the cell she found Coupeau raving mad! He was
+fighting in the middle of the cell with invisible enemies. He tried
+to hide himself; he talked and he answered, as if there were twenty
+persons. Gervaise watched him with distended eyes. He fancied himself
+on a roof, laying down the sheets of zinc. He blew the furnace with
+his mouth, and he went down on his knees and made a motion as if he
+had soldering irons in his hand. He was troubled by his shoes: it
+seemed as if he thought they were dangerous. On the next roofs stood
+persons who insulted him by letting quantities of rats loose. He
+stamped here and there in his desire to kill them and the spiders
+too! He pulled away his clothing to catch the creatures who, he said,
+intended to burrow under his skin. In another minute he believed
+himself to be a locomotive and puffed and panted. He darted toward
+the window and looked down into the street as if he were on a roof.
+
+"Look!" he said. "There is a traveling circus. I see the lions and
+the panthers making faces at me. And there is Clemence. Good God,
+man, don't fire!"
+
+And he gesticulated to the men who, he said, were pointing their guns
+at him.
+
+He talked incessantly, his voice growing louder and louder, higher
+and higher.
+
+"Ah, it is you, is it? But please keep your hair out of my mouth."
+
+And he passed his hand over his face as if to take away the hair.
+
+"Who is it?" said the keeper.
+
+"My wife, of course."
+
+He looked at the wall, turning his back to Gervaise, who felt very
+strange, and looked at the wall to see if she were there! He talked
+on.
+
+"You look very fine. Where did you get that dress? Come here and let
+me arrange it for you a little. You devil! There he is again!"
+
+And he leaped at the wall, but the soft cushions threw him back.
+
+"Whom do you see?" asked the young doctor.
+
+"Lantier! Lantier!"
+
+Gervaise could not endure the eyes of the young man, for the scene
+brought back to her so much of her former life.
+
+Coupeau fancied, as he had been thrown back from the wall in front,
+that he was now attacked in the rear, and he leaped over the mattress
+with the agility of a cat. His respiration grew shorter and shorter,
+his eyes starting from their sockets.
+
+"He is killing her!" he shrieked. "Killing her! Just see the blood!"
+
+He fell back against the wall with his hands wide open before him,
+as if he were repelling the approach of some frightful object. He
+uttered two long, low groans and then fell flat on the mattress.
+
+"He is dead! He is dead!" moaned Gervaise.
+
+The keeper lifted Coupeau. No, he was not dead; his bare feet quivered
+with a regular motion. The surgeon in chief came in, bringing two
+colleagues. The three men stood in grave silence, watching the man
+for some time. They uncovered him, and Gervaise saw his shoulders
+and back.
+
+The tremulous motion had now taken complete possession of the body as
+well as the limbs, and a strange ripple ran just under the skin.
+
+"He is asleep," said the surgeon in chief, turning to his colleagues.
+
+Coupeau's eyes were closed, and his face twitched convulsively.
+Coupeau might sleep, but his feet did nothing of the kind.
+
+Gervaise, seeing the doctors lay their hands on Coupeau's body,
+wished to do the same. She approached softly and placed her hand
+on his shoulder and left it there for a minute.
+
+What was going on there? A river seemed hurrying on under that skin.
+It was the liquor of the Assommoir, working like a mole through
+muscle, nerves, bone and marrow.
+
+The doctors went away, and Gervaise, at the end of another hour,
+said to the young surgeon:
+
+"He is dead, sir."
+
+But the surgeon, looking at the feet, said: "No," for those poor feet
+were still dancing.
+
+Another hour, and yet another passed. Suddenly the feet were stiff
+and motionless, and the young surgeon turned to Gervaise.
+
+"He is dead," he said.
+
+Death alone had stopped those feet.
+
+When Gervaise went back she was met at the door by a crowd of people
+who wished to ask her questions, she thought.
+
+"He is dead," she said quietly as she moved on.
+
+But no one heard her. They had their own tale to tell then. How
+Poisson had nearly murdered Lantier. Poisson was a tiger, and he ought
+to have seen what was going on long before. And Boche said the woman
+had taken the shop and that Lantier was, as usual, in luck again, for
+he adored tripe.
+
+In the meantime Gervaise went directly to Mme Lerat and Mme Lorilleux
+and said faintly:
+
+"He is dead--after four days of horror."
+
+Then the two sisters were in duty bound to pull out their
+handkerchiefs. Their brother had lived a most dissolute life,
+but then he was their brother.
+
+Boche shrugged his shoulders and said in an audible voice:
+
+"Pshaw! It is only one drunkard the less!"
+
+After this day Gervaise was not always quite right in her mind, and
+it was one of the attractions of the house to see her act Coupeau.
+
+But her representations were often involuntary. She trembled at times
+from head to foot and uttered little spasmodic cries. She had taken
+the disease in a modified form at Sainte-Anne's from looking so long
+at her husband. But she never became altogether like him in the few
+remaining months of her existence.
+
+She sank lower day by day. As soon as she got a little money from
+any source whatever she drank it away at once. Her landlord decided
+to turn her out of the room she occupied, and as Father Bru was
+discovered dead one day in his den under the stairs, M. Marescot
+allowed her to take possession of his quarters. It was there,
+therefore, on the old straw bed, that she lay waiting for death to
+come. Apparently even Mother Earth would have none of her. She tried
+several times to throw herself out of the window, but death took her
+by bits, as it were. In fact, no one knew exactly when she died or
+exactly what she died of. They spoke of cold and hunger.
+
+But the truth was she died of utter weariness of life, and Father
+Bazonge came the day she was found dead in her den.
+
+Under his arm he carried a coffin, and he was very tipsy and as gay
+as a lark.
+
+"It is foolish to be in a hurry, because one always gets what one
+wants finally. I am ready to give you all your good pleasure when your
+time comes. Some want to go, and some want to stay. And here is one
+who wanted to go and was kept waiting."
+
+And when he lifted Gervaise in his great, coarse hands he did it
+tenderly. And as he laid her gently in her coffin he murmured between
+two hiccups:
+
+"It is I--my dear, it is I," said this rough consoler of women. "It is
+I. Be happy now and sleep quietly, my dear!"
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
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