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Title: L'Assommoir

Author: Emile Zola

Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8600]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on July 27, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK L'ASSOMMOIR ***




Produced by John Bickers and Dagny




                             L'ASSOMMOIR

                                  BY

                              EMILE ZOLA



                              CHAPTER I.

Gervaise had waited up for Lantier until two in the morning. Then,
shivering from having remained in a thin loose jacket, exposed to the
fresh air at the window, she had thrown herself across the bed,
drowsy, feverish, and her cheeks bathed in tears.

For a week past, on leaving the "Two-Headed Calf," where they took
their meals, he had sent her home with the children and never
reappeared himself till late at night, alleging that he had been in
search of work. That evening, while watching for his return, she
thought she had seen him enter the dancing-hall of the "Grand-
Balcony," the ten blazing windows of which lighted up with the glare
of a conflagration the dark expanse of the exterior Boulevards; and
five or six paces behind him, she had caught sight of little Adele, a
burnisher, who dined at the same restaurant, swinging her hands, as if
she had just quitted his arm so as not to pass together under the
dazzling light of the globes at the door.

When, towards five o'clock, Gervaise awoke, stiff and sore, she broke
forth into sobs. Lantier had not returned. For the first time he had
slept away from home. She remained seated on the edge of the bed,
under the strip of faded chintz, which hung from the rod fastened to
the ceiling by a piece of string. And slowly, with her eyes veiled by
tears, she glanced round the wretched lodging, furnished with a walnut
chest of drawers, minus one drawer, three rush-bottomed chairs, and a
little greasy table, on which stood a broken water-jug. There had been
added, for the children, an iron bedstead, which prevented any one
getting to the chest of drawers, and filled two-thirds of the room.
Gervaise's and Lantier's trunk, wide open, in one corner, displayed
its emptiness, and a man's old hat right at the bottom almost buried
beneath some dirty shirts and socks; whilst, against the walls, above
the articles of furniture, hung a shawl full of holes, and a pair of
trousers begrimed with mud, the last rags which the dealers in second-
hand clothes declined to buy. In the centre of the mantel-piece, lying
between two odd zinc candle-sticks, was a bundle of pink pawn-tickets.
It was the best room of the hotel, the first floor room, looking on to
the Boulevard.

The two children were sleeping side by side, with their heads on the
same pillow. Claude, aged eight years, was breathing quietly, with his
little hands thrown outside the coverlet; while Etienne, only four
years old, was smiling, with one arm round his brother's neck! And
bare-footed, without thinking to again put on the old shoes that had
fallen on the floor, she resumed her position at the window, her eyes
searching the pavements in the distance.

The hotel was situated on the Boulevard de la Chapelle, to the left of
the Barriere Poissonniere. It was a building of two stories high,
painted a red, of the color of wine dregs, up to the second floor, and
with shutters all rotted by the rain. Over a lamp with starred panes
of glass, one could manage to read, between the two windows, the
words, "Hotel Boncoeur, kept by Marsoullier," painted in big yellow
letters, several pieces of which the moldering of the plaster had
carried away. The lamp preventing her seeing, Gervaise raised herself
on tiptoe, still holding the handkerchief to her lips. She looked to
the right, towards the Boulevard Rochechouart, where groups of
butchers, in aprons smeared with blood, were hanging about in front of
the slaughter-houses; and the fresh breeze wafted occasionally a
stench of slaughtered beasts. Looking to the left, she scanned a long
avenue that ended nearly in front of her, where the white mass of the
Lariboisiere Hospital was then in course of construction. Slowly, from
one end of the horizon to the other, she followed the octroi wall,
behind which she sometimes heard, during night time, the shrieks of
persons being murdered; and she searchingly looked into the remote
angles, the dark corners, black with humidity and filth, fearing to
discern there Lantier's body, stabbed to death.

She looked at the endless gray wall that surrounded the city with its
belt of desolation. When she raised her eyes higher, she became aware
of a bright burst of sunlight. The dull hum of the city's awakening
already filled the air. Craning her neck to look at the Poissonniere
gate, she remained for a time watching the constant stream of men,
horses, and carts which flooded down from the heights of Montmartre
and La Chapelle, pouring between the two squat octroi lodges. It was
like a herd of plodding cattle, an endless throng widened by sudden
stoppages into eddies that spilled off the sidewalks into the street,
a steady procession of laborers on their way back to work with tools
slung over their back and a loaf of bread under their arm. This human
inundation kept pouring down into Paris to be constantly swallowed up.
Gervaise leaned further out at the risk of falling when she thought
she recognized Lantier among the throng. She pressed the handkerchief
tighter against her mouth, as though to push back the pain within her.

The sound of a young and cheerful voice caused her to leave the
window.

"So the old man isn't here, Madame Lantier?"

"Why, no, Monsieur Coupeau," she replied, trying to smile.

Coupeau, a zinc-worker who occupied a ten franc room on the top floor,
having seen the door unlocked, had walked in as friends will do.

"You know," he continued, "I'm now working over there in the hospital.
What beautiful May weather, isn't it? The air is rather sharp this
morning."

And he looked at Gervaise's face, red with weeping. When he saw that
the bed had not been slept in, he shook his head gently; then he went
to the children's couch where they were sleeping, looking as rosy as
cherubs, and, lowering his voice, he said,

"Come, the old man's not been home, has he? Don't worry yourself,
Madame Lantier. He's very much occupied with politics. When they were
voting for Eugene Sue the other day, he was acting almost crazy. He
has very likely spent the night with some friends blackguarding
crapulous Bonaparte."

"No, no," she murmured with an effort. "You don't think that. I know
where Lantier is. You see, we have our little troubles like the rest
of the world!"

Coupeau winked his eye, to indicate he was not a dupe of this
falsehood; and he went off, after offering to fetch her milk, if she
did not care to go out: she was a good and courageous woman, and might
count upon him on any day of trouble.

As soon as he was gone, Gervaise again returned to the window. At the
Barriere, the tramp of the drove still continued in the morning air:
locksmiths in short blue blouses, masons in white jackets, house
painters in overcoats over long smocks. From a distance the crowd
looked like a chalky smear of neutral hue composed chiefly of faded
blue and dingy gray. When one of the workers occasionally stopped to
light his pipe the others kept plodding past him, without sparing a
laugh or a word to a comrade. With cheeks gray as clay, their eyes
were continually drawn toward Paris which was swallowing them one by
one.

At both corners of the Rue des Poissonniers however, some of the men
slackened their pace as they neared the doors of the two wine-dealers
who were taking down their shutters; and, before entering, they stood
on the edge of the pavement, looking sideways over Paris, with no
strength in their arms and already inclined for a day of idleness.
Inside various groups were already buying rounds of drinks, or just
standing around, forgetting their troubles, crowding up the place,
coughing, spitting, clearing their throats with sip after sip.

Gervaise was watching Pere Colombe's wineshop to the left of the
street, where she thought she had seen Lantier, when a stout woman,
bareheaded and wearing an apron called to her from the middle of the
roadway:

"Hey, Madame Lantier, you're up very early!"

Gervaise leaned out. "Why! It's you, Madame Boche! Oh! I've got a lot
of work to-day!"

"Yes, things don't do themselves, do they?"

The conversation continued between roadway and window. Madame Boche
was concierge of the building where the "Two-Headed Calf" was on the
ground floor. Gervaise had waited for Lantier more than once in the
concierge's lodge, so as not to be alone at table with all the men who
ate at the restaurant. Madame Boche was going to a tailor who was late
in mending an overcoat for her husband. She mentioned one of her
tenants who had come in with a woman the night before and kept
everybody awake past three in the morning. She looked at Gervaise with
intense curiosity.

"Is Monsieur Lantier, then, still in bed?" she asked abruptly.

"Yes, he's asleep," replied Gervaise, who could not avoid blushing.

Madame Boche saw the tears come into her eyes; and, satisfied no
doubt, she turned to go, declaring men to be a cursed, lazy set. As
she went off, she called back:

"It's this morning you go to the wash-house, isn't it? I've something
to wash, too. I'll keep you a place next to me, and we can chat
together." Then, as if moved with sudden pity, she added:

"My poor little thing, you had far better not remain there; you'll
take harm. You look quite blue with cold."

Gervaise still obstinately remained at the window during two mortal
hours, till eight o'clock. Now all the shops had opened. Only a few
work men were still hurrying along.

The working girls now filled the boulevard: metal polishers,
milliners, flower sellers, shivering in their thin clothing. In small
groups they chattered gaily, laughing and glancing here and there.
Occasionally there would be one girl by herself, thin, pale, serious-
faced, picking her way along the city wall among the puddles and the
filth.

After the working girls, the office clerks came past, breathing upon
their chilled fingers and munching penny rolls. Some of them are gaunt
young fellows in ill-fitting suits, their tired eyes still fogged from
sleep. Others are older men, stooped and tottering, with faces pale
and drawn from long hours of office work and glancing nervously at
their watches for fear of arriving late.

In time the Boulevards settle into their usual morning quiet. Old
folks come out to stroll in the sun. Tired young mothers in bedraggled
skirts cuddle babies in their arms or sit on a bench to change
diapers. Children run, squealing and laughing, pushing and shoving.

Then Gervaise felt herself choking, dizzy with anguish, all hopes
gone; it seemed to her that everything was ended, even time itself,
and that Lantier would return no more. Her eyes vacantly wandered from
the old slaughter-house, foul with butchery and with stench, to the
new white hospital which, through the yawning openings of its ranges
of windows, disclosed the naked wards, where death was preparing to
mow. In front of her on the other side of the octroi wall the bright
heavens dazzled her, with the rising sun which rose higher and higher
over the vast awaking city.

The young woman was seated on a chair, no longer crying, and with her
hands abandoned on her lap, when Lantier quietly entered the room.

"It's you! It's you!" she cried, rising to throw herself upon his
neck.

"Yes, it's me. What of it?" he replied. "You are not going to begin
any of your nonsense, I hope!"

He had pushed her aside. Then, with a gesture of ill-humor he threw
his black felt hat to the chest of drawers. He was a young fellow of
twenty-six years of age, short and very dark, with a handsome figure,
and slight moustaches which his hand was always mechanically twirling.
He wore a workman's overalls and an old soiled overcoat, which he had
belted tightly at the waist, and he spoke with a strong Provencal
accent.

Gervaise, who had fallen back on her chair, gently complained, in
short sentences: "I've not had a wink of sleep. I feared some harm had
happened to you. Where have you been? Where did you spend the night?
For heaven's sake! Don't do it again, or I shall go crazy. Tell me
Auguste, where have you been?"

"Where I had business, of course," he returned shrugging his
shoulders. "At eight o'clock, I was at La Glaciere, with my friend who
is to start a hat factory. We sat talking late, so I preferred to
sleep there. Now, you know, I don't like being spied upon, so just
shut up!"

The young woman recommenced sobbing. The loud voices and the rough
movements of Lantier, who upset the chairs, had awakened the children.
They sat up in bed, half naked, disentangling their hair with their
tiny hands, and, hearing their mother weep, they uttered terrible
screams, crying also with their scarcely open eyes.

"Ah! there's the music!" shouted Lantier furiously. "I warn you, I'll
take my hook! And it will be for good, this time. You won't shut up?
Then, good morning! I'll return to the place I've just come from."

He had already taken his hat from off the chest of drawers. But
Gervaise threw herself before him, stammering: "No, no!"

And she hushed the little ones' tears with her caresses, smoothed
their hair, and soothed them with soft words. The children, suddenly
quieted, laughing on their pillow, amused themselves by punching each
other. The father however, without even taking off his boots, had
thrown himself on the bed looking worn out, his face bearing signs of
having been up all night. He did not go to sleep, he lay with his eyes
wide open, looking round the room.

"It's a mess here!" he muttered. And after observing Gervaise a
moment, he malignantly added: "Don't you even wash yourself now?"

Gervaise was twenty-two, tall and slim with fine features, but she was
already beginning to show the strain of her hard life. She seemed to
have aged ten years from the hours of agonized weeping. Lantier's mean
remark made her mad.

"You're not fair," she said spiritedly. "You well know I do all I can.
It's not my fault we find ourselves here. I would like to see you,
with two children, in a room where there's not even a stove to heat
some water. When we arrived in Paris, instead of squandering your
money, you should have made a home for us at once, as you promised."

"Listen!" Lantier exploded. "You cracked the nut with me; it doesn't
become you to sneer at it now!"

Apparently not listening, Gervaise went on with her own thought. "If
we work hard we can get out of the hole we're in. Madame Fauconnier,
the laundress on Rue Neuve, will start me on Monday. If you work with
your friend from La Glaciere, in six months we will be doing well.
We'll have enough for decent clothes and a place we can call our own.
But we'll have to stick with it and work hard."

Lantier turned over towards the wall, looking greatly bored. Then
Gervaise lost her temper.

"Yes, that's it, I know the love of work doesn't trouble you much.
You're bursting with ambition, you want to be dressed like a
gentleman. You don't think me nice enough, do you, now that you've
made me pawn all my dresses? Listen, Auguste, I didn't intend to speak
of it, I would have waited a bit longer, but I know where you spent
the night; I saw you enter the 'Grand-Balcony' with that trollop
Adele. Ah! you choose them well! She's a nice one, she is! She does
well to put on the airs of a princess! She's been the ridicule of
every man who frequents the restaurant."

At a bound Lantier sprang from the bed. His eyes had become as black
as ink in his pale face. With this little man, rage blew like a
tempest.

"Yes, yes, of every man who frequents the restaurant!" repeated the
young woman. "Madame Boche intends to give them notice, she and her
long stick of a sister, because they've always a string of men after
them on the staircase."

Lantier raised his fists; then, resisting the desire of striking her,
he seized hold of her by the arms, shook her violently and sent her
sprawling upon the bed of the children, who recommenced crying. And he
lay down again, mumbling, like a man resolving on something that he
previously hesitated to do:

"You don't know what you've done, Gervaise. You've made a big mistake;
you'll see."

For an instant the children continued sobbing. Their mother, who
remained bending over the bed, held them both in her embrace, and kept
repeating the same words in a monotonous tone of voice.

"Ah! if it weren't for you! My poor little ones! If it weren't for
you! If it weren't for you!"

Stretched out quietly, his eyes raised to the faded strip of chintz,
Lantier no longer listened, but seemed to be buried in a fixed idea.
He remained thus for nearly an hour, without giving way to sleep, in
spite of the fatigue which weighed his eyelids down.

He finally turned toward Gervaise, his face set hard in determination.
She had gotten the children up and dressed and had almost finished
cleaning the room. The room looked, as always, dark and depressing
with its sooty black ceiling and paper peeling from the damp walls.
The dilapidated furniture was always streaked and dirty despite
frequent dustings. Gervaise, devouring her grief, trying to assume a
look of indifference, hurried over her work.

Lantier watched as she tidied her hair in front of the small mirror
hanging near the window. While she washed herself he looked at her
bare arms and shoulders. He seemed to be making comparisons in his
mind as his lips formed a grimace. Gervaise limped with her right leg,
though it was scarcely noticeable except when she was tired. To-day,
exhausted from remaining awake all night, she was supporting herself
against the wall and dragging her leg.

Neither one spoke, they had nothing more to say. Lantier seemed to be
waiting, while Gervaise kept busy and tried to keep her countenance
expressionless. Finally, while she was making a bundle of the dirty
clothes thrown in a corner, behind the trunk, he at length opened his
lips and asked:

"What are you doing there? Where are you going?"

She did not answer at first. Then, when he furiously repeated his
question, she made up her mind, and said:

"I suppose you can see for yourself. I'm going to wash all this. The
children can't live in filth."

He let her pick up two or three handkerchiefs. And, after a fresh
pause, he resumed: "Have you got any money?"

At these words she stood up and looked him full in the face, without
leaving go of the children's dirty clothes, which she held in her
hand.

"Money! And where do you think I can have stolen any? You know well
enough that I got three francs the day before yesterday on my black
skirt. We've lunched twice off it, and money goes quick at the pork-
butcher's. No, you may be quite sure I've no money. I've four sous for
the wash-house. I don't have an extra income like some women."

He let this allusion pass. He had moved off the bed, and was passing
in review the few rags hanging about the room. He ended by taking up
the pair of trousers and the shawl, and searching the drawers, he
added two chemises and a woman's loose jacket to the parcel; then, he
threw the whole bundle into Gervaise's arms, saying:

"Here, go and pop this."

"Don't you want me to pop the children as well?" asked she. "Eh! If
they lent on children, it would be a fine riddance!"

She went to the pawn-place, however. When she returned at the end of
half an hour, she laid a hundred sou piece on the mantel-shelf, and
added the ticket to the others, between the two candlesticks.

"That's what they gave me," said she. "I wanted six francs, but I
couldn't manage it. Oh! they'll never ruin themselves. And there's
always such a crowd there!"

Lantier did not pick up the five franc piece directly. He would
rather that she got change, so as to leave her some of it. But he
decided to slip it into his waistcoat pocket, when he noticed a small
piece of ham wrapped up in paper, and the remains of a loaf on the
chest of drawers.

"I didn't dare go to the milkwoman's, because we owe her a week,"
explained Gervaise. "But I shall be back early; you can get some bread
and some chops whilst I'm away, and then we'll have lunch. Bring also
a bottle of wine."

He did not say no. Their quarrel seemed to be forgotten. The young
woman was completing her bundle of dirty clothes. But when she went to
take Lantier's shirts and socks from the bottom of the trunk, he
called to her to leave them alone.

"Leave my things, d'ye hear? I don't want 'em touched!"

"What's it you don't want touched?" she asked, rising up. "I suppose
you don't mean to put these filthy things on again, do you? They must
be washed."

She studied his boyishly handsome face, now so rigid that it seemed
nothing could ever soften it. He angrily grabbed his things from her
and threw them back into the trunk, saying:

"Just obey me, for once! I tell you I won't have 'em touched!"

"But why?" she asked, turning pale, a terrible suspicion crossing her
mind. "You don't need your shirts now, you're not going away. What can
it matter to you if I take them?"

He hesitated for an instant, embarrassed by the piercing glance she
fixed upon him. "Why--why--" stammered he, "because you go and tell
everyone that you keep me, that you wash and mend. Well! It worries
me, there! Attend to your own business and I'll attend to mine,
washerwomen don't work for dogs."

She supplicated, she protested she had never complained; but he
roughly closed the trunk and sat down upon it, saying, "No!" to her
face. He could surely do as he liked with what belonged to him! Then,
to escape from the inquiring looks she leveled at him, he went and
laid down on the bed again, saying that he was sleepy, and requesting
her not to make his head ache with any more of her row. This time
indeed, he seemed to fall asleep. Gervaise, for a while, remained
undecided. She was tempted to kick the bundle of dirty clothes on one
side, and to sit down and sew. But Lantier's regular breathing ended
by reassuring her. She took the ball of blue and the piece of soap
remaining from her last washing, and going up to the little ones who
were quietly playing with some old corks in front of the window, she
kissed them, and said in a low voice:

"Be very good, don't make any noise; papa's asleep."

When she left the room, Claude's and Etienne's gentle laughter alone
disturbed the great silence beneath the blackened ceiling. It was ten
o'clock. A ray of sunshine entered by the half open window.

On the Boulevard, Gervaise turned to the left, and followed the Rue
Neuve de la Goutte-d'Or. As she passed Madame Fauconnier's shop, she
slightly bowed her head. The wash-house she was bound for was situated
towards the middle of the street, at the part where the roadway
commenced to ascend.

The rounded, gray contours of the three large zinc wash tanks, studded
with rivets, rose above the flat-roofed building. Behind them was the
drying room, a high second story, closed in on all sides by narrow-
slatted lattices so that the air could circulate freely, and through
which laundry could be seen hanging on brass wires. The steam engine's
smokestack exhaled puffs of white smoke to the right of the water
tanks.

Gervaise was used to puddles and did not bother to tuck her skirts up
before making her way through the doorway, which was cluttered with
jars of bleaching water. She was already acquainted with the mistress
of the wash-house, a delicate little woman with red, inflamed eyes,
who sat in a small glazed closet with account books in front of her,
bars of soap on shelves, balls of blue in glass bowls, and pounds of
soda done up in packets; and, as she passed, she asked for her beetle
and her scouring-brush, which she had left to be taken care of the
last time she had done her washing there. Then, after obtaining her
number, she entered the wash-house.

It was an immense shed, with large clear windows, and a flat ceiling,
showing the beams supported on cast-iron pillars. Pale rays of light
passed through the hot steam, which remained suspended like a milky
fog. Smoke arose from certain corners, spreading about and covering
the recesses with a bluish veil. A heavy moisture hung around,
impregnated with a soapy odor, a damp insipid smell, continuous though
at moments overpowered by the more potent fumes of the chemicals.
Along the washing-places, on either side of the central alley, were
rows of women, with bare arms and necks, and skirts tucked up, showing
colored stockings and heavy lace-up shoes. They were beating
furiously, laughing, leaning back to call out a word in the midst of
the din, or stooping over their tubs, all of them brutal, ungainly,
foul of speech, and soaked as though by a shower, with their flesh red
and reeking.

All around the women continuously flowed a river from hot-water
buckets emptied with a sudden splash, cold-water faucets left
dripping, soap suds spattering, and the dripping from rinsed laundry
which was hung up. It splashed their feet and drained away across the
sloping flagstones. The din of the shouting and the rhythmic beating
was joined by the patter of steady dripping. It was slightly muffled
by the moisture-soaked ceiling. Meanwhile, the steam engine could be
heard as it puffed and snorted ceaselessly while cloaked in its white
mist. The dancing vibration of its flywheel seemed to regulate the
volume of the noisy turbulence.

Gervaise passed slowly along the alley, looking to the right and left,
carrying her laundry bundle under one arm, with one hip thrust high
and limping more than usual. She was jostled by several women in the
hubbub.

"This way, my dear!" cried Madame Boche, in her loud voice. Then, when
the young woman had joined her at the very end on the left, the
concierge, who was furiously rubbing a dirty sock, began to talk
incessantly, without leaving off her work. "Put your things there,
I've kept your place. Oh, I sha'n't be long over what I've got. Boche
scarcely dirties his things at all. And you, you won't be long either,
will you? Your bundle's quite a little one. Before twelve o'clock we
shall have finished, and we can go off to lunch. I used to send my
things to a laundress in the Rue Poulet, but she destroyed everything
with her chlorine and her brushes; so now I do the washing myself.
It's so much saved; it only costs the soap. I say, you should have put
those shirts to soak. Those little rascals of children, on my word!
One would think their bodies were covered with soot."

Gervaise, having undone her bundle, was spreading out the little ones'
shirts, and as Madame Boche advised her to take a pailful of lye, she
answered, "Oh, no! warm water will do. I'm used to it." She had sorted
her laundry with several colored pieces to one side. Then, after
filling her tub with four pails of cold water from the tap behind her,
she plunged her pile of whites into it.

"You're used to it?" repeated Madame Boche. "You were a washerwoman in
your native place, weren't you, my dear?"

Gervaise, with her sleeves pushed back, displayed the graceful arms of
a young blonde, as yet scarcely reddened at the elbows, and started
scrubbing her laundry. She spread a shirt out on the narrow rubbing
board which was water-bleached and eroded by years of use. She rubbed
soap into the shirt, turned it over, and soaped the other side. Before
replying to Madame Boche she grasped her beetle and began to pound
away so that her shouted phrases were punctuated with loud and
rhythmic thumps.

"Yes, yes, a washerwoman--When I was ten--That's twelve years ago--We
used to go to the river--It smelt nicer there than it does here--You
should have seen, there was a nook under the trees, with clear running
water--You know, at Plassans--Don't you know Plassans?--It's near
Marseilles."

"How you go at it!" exclaimed Madame Boche, amazed at the strength of
her blows. "You could flatten out a piece of iron with your little
lady-like arms."

The conversation continued in a very high volume. At times, the
concierge, not catching what was said, was obliged to lean forward.
All the linen was beaten, and with a will! Gervaise plunged it into
the tub again, and then took it out once more, each article
separately, to rub it over with soap a second time and brush it. With
one hand she held the article firmly on the plank; with the other,
which grasped the short couch-grass brush, she extracted from the
linen a dirty lather, which fell in long drips. Then, in the slight
noise caused by the brush, the two women drew together, and conversed
in a more intimate way.

"No, we're not married," resumed Gervaise. "I don't hide it. Lantier
isn't so nice for any one to care to be his wife. If it weren't for
the children! I was fourteen and he was eighteen when we had our first
one. It happened in the usual way, you know how it is. I wasn't happy
at home. Old man Macquart would kick me in the tail whenever he felt
like it, for no reason at all. I had to have some fun outside. We
might have been married, but--I forget why--our parents wouldn't
consent."

She shook her hands, which were growing red in the white suds. "The
water's awfully hard in Paris."

Madame Boche was now washing only very slowly. She kept leaving off,
making her work last as long as she could, so as to remain there, to
listen to that story, which her curiosity had been hankering to know
for a fortnight past. Her mouth was half open in the midst of her big,
fat face; her eyes, which were almost at the top of her head, were
gleaming. She was thinking, with the satisfaction of having guessed
right.

"That's it, the little one gossips too much. There's been a row."

Then, she observed out loud, "He isn't nice, then?"

"Don't mention it!" replied Gervaise. "He used to behave very well in
the country; but, since we've been in Paris, he's been unbearable. I
must tell you that his mother died last year and left him some money--
about seventeen hundred francs. He would come to Paris, so, as old
Macquart was forever knocking me about without warning, I consented to
come away with him. We made the journey with two children. He was to
set me up as a laundress, and work himself at his trade of a hatter.
We should have been very happy; but, you see, Lantier's ambitious and
a spendthrift, a fellow who only thinks of amusing himself. In short,
he's not worth much. On arriving, we went to the Hotel Montmartre, in
the Rue Montmartre. And then there were dinners, and cabs, and the
theatre; a watch for himself and a silk dress for me, for he's not
unkind when he's got the money. You understand, he went in for
everything, and so well that at the end of two months we were cleaned
out. It was then that we came to live at the Hotel Boncoeur, and that
this horrible life began."

She interrupted herself. A lump had suddenly risen in her throat, and
she could scarcely restrain her tears. She had finished brushing the
things.

"I must go and fetch my hot water," she murmured.

But Madame Boche, greatly disappointed at this break off in the
disclosures, called to the wash-house boy, who was passing, "My little
Charles, kindly get madame a pail of hot water; she's in a hurry."

The youth took the bucket and brought it back filled. Gervaise paid
him; it was a sou the pailful. She poured the hot water into the tub,
and soaped the things a last time with her hands, leaning over them in
a mass of steam, which deposited small beads of grey vapor in her
light hair.

"Here put some soda in, I've got some by me," said the concierge,
obligingly.

And she emptied into Gervaise's tub what remained of a bag of soda
which she had brought with her. She also offered her some of the
chemical water, but the young woman declined it; it was only good for
grease and wine stains.

"I think he's rather a loose fellow," resumed Madame Boche, returning
to Lantier, but without naming him.

Gervaise, bent almost double, her hands all shriveled, and thrust in
amongst the clothes, merely tossed her head.

"Yes, yes," continued the other, "I have noticed several little
things--" But she suddenly interrupted herself, as Gervaise jumped up,
with a pale face, and staring wildly at her. Then she exclaimed, "Oh,
no! I don't know anything! He likes to laugh a bit, I think, that's
all. For instance, you know the two girls who lodge at my place, Adele
and Virginie. Well; he larks about with 'em, but he just flirts for
sport."

The young woman standing before her, her face covered with
perspiration, the water dripping from her arms, continued to stare at
her with a fixed and penetrating look. Then the concierge got excited,
giving herself a blow on the chest, and pledging her word of honor,
she cried:

"I know nothing, I mean it when I say so!"

Then calming herself, she added in a gentle voice, as if speaking to a
person on whom loud protestations would have no effect, "I think he
has a frank look about the eyes. He'll marry you, my dear, I'm sure of
it."

Gervaise wiped her forehead with her wet hand. Shaking her head again,
she pulled another garment out of the water. Both of them kept silence
for a moment. The wash-house was quieting down, for eleven o'clock had
struck. Half of the washerwomen were perched on the edge of their
tubs, eating sausages between slices of bread and drinking from open
bottles of wine. Only housewives who had come to launder small bundles
of family linen were hurrying to finish.

Occasional beetle blows could still be heard amid the subdued laughter
and gossip half-choked by the greedy chewing of jawbones. The steam
engine never stopped. Its vibrant, snorting voice seemed to fill the
entire hall, though not one of the women even heard it. It was like
the breathing of the wash-house, its hot breath collecting under the
ceiling rafters in an eternal floating mist.

The heat was becoming intolerable. Through the tall windows on the
left sunlight was streaming in, touching the steamy vapors with
opalescent tints of soft pinks and grayish blues. Charles went from
window to window, letting down the heavy canvas awnings. Then he
crossed to the shady side to open the ventilators. He was applauded by
cries and hand clapping and a rough sort of gaiety spread around. Soon
even the last of the beetle-pounding stopped.

With full mouths, the washerwomen could only make gestures. It became
so quiet that the grating sound of the fireman shoveling coal into
the engine's firebox could be heard at regular intervals from far at
the other end.

Gervaise was washing her colored things in the hot water thick with
lather, which she had kept for the purpose. When she had finished, she
drew a trestle towards her and hung across it all the different
articles; the drippings from which made bluish puddles on the floor;
and she commenced rinsing. Behind her, the cold water tap was set
running into a vast tub fixed to the ground, and across which were two
wooden bars whereon to lay the clothes. High up in the air were two
other bars for the things to finish dripping on.

"We're almost finished, and not a bad job," said Madame Boche. "I'll
wait and help you wring all that."

"Oh! it's not worth while; I'm much obliged though," replied the young
woman, who was kneading with her hands and sousing the colored things
in some clean water. "If I'd any sheets, it would be another thing."

But she had, however, to accept the concierge's assistance. They were
wringing between them, one at each end, a woolen skirt of a washed-out
chestnut color, from which dribbled a yellowish water, when Madame
Boche exclaimed:

"Why, there's tall Virginie! What has she come here to wash, when all
her wardrobe that isn't on her would go into a pocket handkerchief?"

Gervaise jerked her head up. Virginie was a girl of her own age,
taller than she was, dark and pretty in spite of her face being rather
long and narrow. She had on an old black dress with flounces, and a
red ribbon round her neck; and her hair was done up carefully, the
chignon being enclosed in a blue silk net. She stood an instant in the
middle of the central alley, screwing up her eyes as though seeking
someone; then, when she caught sight of Gervaise, she passed close to
her, erect, insolent, and with a swinging gait, and took a place in
the same row, five tubs away from her.

"There's a freak for you!" continued Madame Boche in a lower tone of
voice. "She never does any laundry, not even a pair of cuffs. A
seamstress who doesn't even sew on a loose button! She's just like her
sister, the brass burnisher, that hussy Adele, who stays away from her
job two days out of three. Nobody knows who their folks are or how
they make a living. Though, if I wanted to talk . . . What on earth is
she scrubbing there? A filthy petticoat. I'll wager it's seen some
lovely sights, that petticoat!"

Madame Boche was evidently trying to make herself agreeable to
Gervaise. The truth was she often took a cup of coffee with Adele and
Virginia, when the girls had any money. Gervaise did not answer, but
hurried over her work with feverish hands. She had just prepared her
blue in a little tub that stood on three legs. She dipped in the linen
things, and shook them an instant at the bottom of the colored water,
the reflection of which had a pinky tinge; and after wringing them
lightly, she spread them out on the wooden bars up above. During the
time she was occupied with this work, she made a point of turning her
back on Virginie. But she heard her chuckles; she could feel her
sidelong glances. Virginie appeared only to have come there to provoke
her. At one moment, Gervaise having turned around, they both stared
into each other's faces.

"Leave her alone," whispered Madame Boche. "You're not going to pull
each other's hair out, I hope. When I tell you there's nothing to it!
It isn't her, anyhow!"

At this moment, as the young woman was hanging up the last article of
clothing, there was a sound of laughter at the door of the wash-house.

"Here are two brats who want their mamma!" cried Charles.

All the women leant forward. Gervaise recognized Claude and Etienne.
As soon as they caught sight of her, they ran to her through the
puddles, the heels of their unlaced shoes resounding on the
flagstones. Claude, the eldest, held his little brother by the hand.
The women, as they passed them, uttered little exclamations of
affection as they noticed their frightened though smiling faces. And
they stood there, in front of their mother, without leaving go of each
other's hands, and holding their fair heads erect.

"Has papa sent you?" asked Gervaise.

But as she stooped to tie the laces of Etienne's shoes, she saw the
key of their room on one of Claude's fingers, with the brass number
hanging from it.

"Why, you've brought the key!" she said, greatly surprised. "What's
that for?"

The child, seeing the key which he had forgotten on his finger,
appeared to recollect, and exclaimed in his clear voice:

"Papa's gone away."

"He's gone to buy the lunch, and told you to come here to fetch me?"

Claude looked at his brother, hesitated, no longer recollecting. Then
he resumed all in a breath: "Papa's gone away. He jumped off the bed,
he put all the things in the trunk, he carried the trunk down to a
cab. He's gone away."

Gervaise, who was squatting down, slowly rose to her feet, her face
ghastly pale. She put her hands to her cheeks and temples, as though
she felt her head was breaking; and she could find only these words,
which she repeated twenty times in the same tone of voice:

"Ah! good heavens!--ah! good heavens!--ah! good heavens!"

Madame Boche, however, also questioned the child, quite delighted at
the chance of hearing the whole story.

"Come, little one, you must tell us just what happened. It was he who
locked the door and who told you to bring the key, wasn't it?" And,
lowering her voice, she whispered in Claude's ear: "Was there a lady
in the cab?"

The child again got confused. Then he recommenced his story in a
triumphant manner: "He jumped off the bed, he put all the things in
the trunk. He's gone away."

Then, when Madame Boche let him go, he drew his brother in front of
the tap, and they amused themselves by turning on the water. Gervaise
was unable to cry. She was choking, leaning back against her tub, her
face still buried in her hands. Brief shudders rocked her body and she
wailed out long sighs while pressing her hands tighter against her
eyes, as though abandoning herself to the blackness of desolation, a
dark, deep pit into which she seemed to be falling.

"Come, my dear, pull yourself together!" murmured Madame Boche.

"If you only knew! If you only knew!" said she at length very faintly.
"He sent me this morning to pawn my shawl and my chemises to pay for
that cab."

And she burst out crying. The memory of the events of that morning and
of her trip to the pawn-place tore from her the sobs that had been
choking her throat. That abominable trip to the pawn-place was the
thing that hurt most in all her sorrow and despair. Tears were
streaming down her face but she didn't think of using her
handkerchief.

"Be reasonable, do be quiet, everyone's looking at you," Madame Boche,
who hovered round her, kept repeating. "How can you worry yourself so
much on account of a man? You loved him, then, all the same, did you,
my poor darling? A little while ago you were saying all sorts of
things against him; and now you're crying for him, and almost breaking
your heart. Dear me, how silly we all are!"

Then she became quite maternal.

"A pretty little woman like you! Can it be possible? One may tell you
everything now, I suppose. Well! You recollect when I passed under
your window, I already had my suspicions. Just fancy, last night, when
Adele came home, I heard a man's footsteps with hers. So I thought I
would see who it was. I looked up the staircase. The fellow was
already on the second landing; but I certainly recognized Monsieur
Lantier's overcoat. Boche, who was on the watch this morning, saw him
tranquilly nod adieu. He was with Adele, you know. Virginie has a
situation now, where she goes twice a week. Only it's highly imprudent
all the same, for they've only one room and an alcove, and I can't
very well say where Virginie managed to sleep."

She interrupted herself an instant, turned round, and then resumed,
subduing her loud voice:

"She's laughing at seeing you cry, that heartless thing over there.
I'd stake my life that her washing's all a pretence. She's packed off
the other two, and she's come here so as to tell them how you take
it."

Gervaise removed her hands from her face and looked. When she beheld
Virginie in front of her, amidst three or four women, speaking low and
staring at her, she was seized with a mad rage. Her arms in front of
her, searching the ground, she stumbled forward a few paces. Trembling
all over, she found a bucket full of water, grabbed it with both
hands, and emptied it at Virginie.

"The virago!" yelled tall Virginie.

She had stepped back, and her boots alone got wet. The other women,
who for some minutes past had all been greatly upset by Gervaise's
tears, jostled each other in their anxiety to see the fight. Some, who
were finishing their lunch, got on the tops of their tubs. Others
hastened forward, their hands smothered with soap. A ring was formed.

"Ah! the virago!" repeated tall Virginie. "What's the matter with her?
She's mad!"

Gervaise, standing on the defensive, her chin thrust out, her features
convulsed, said nothing, not having yet acquired the Paris gift of
street gab. The other continued:

"Get out! This girl's tired of wallowing about in the country; she
wasn't twelve years old when the soldiers were at her. She even lost
her leg serving her country. That leg's rotting off."

The lookers-on burst out laughing. Virginie, seeing her success,
advanced a couple of steps, drawing herself up to her full height, and
yelling louder than ever:

"Here! Come a bit nearer, just to see how I'll settle you! Don't you
come annoying us here. Do I even know her, the hussy? If she'd wetted
me, I'd have pretty soon shown her battle, as you'd have seen. Let her
just say what I've ever done to her. Speak, you vixen; what's been
done to you?"

"Don't talk so much," stammered Gervaise. "You know well enough. Some
one saw my husband last night. And shut up, because if you don't I'll
most certainly strangle you."

"Her husband! That's a good one! As if cripples like her had husbands!
If he's left you it's not my fault. Surely you don't think I've stolen
him, do you? He was much too good for you and you made him sick. Did
you keep him on a leash? Has anyone here seen her husband? There's a
reward."

The laughter burst forth again. Gervaise contented herself with
continually murmuring in a low tone of voice:

"You know well enough, you know well enough. It's your sister. I'll
strangle her--your sister."

"Yes, go and try it on with my sister," resumed Virginie sneeringly.
"Ah! it's my sister! That's very likely. My sister looks a trifle
different to you; but what's that to me? Can't one come and wash one's
clothes in peace now? Just dry up, d'ye hear, because I've had enough
of it!"

But it was she who returned to the attack, after giving five or six
strokes with her beetle, intoxicated by the insults she had been
giving utterance to, and worked up into a passion. She left off and
recommenced again, speaking in this way three times:

"Well, yes! it's my sister. There now, does that satisfy you? They
adore each other. You should just see them bill and coo! And he's left
you with your children. Those pretty kids with scabs all over their
faces! You got one of them from a gendarme, didn't you? And you let
three others die because you didn't want to pay excess baggage on your
journey. It's your Lantier who told us that. Ah! he's been telling
some fine things; he'd had enough of you!"

"You dirty jade! You dirty jade! You dirty jade!" yelled Gervaise,
beside herself, and again seized with a furious trembling. She turned
round, looking once more about the ground; and only observing the
little tub, she seized hold of it by the legs, and flung the whole of
the bluing at Virginie's face.

"The beast! She's spoilt my dress!" cried the latter, whose shoulder
was sopping wet and whose left hand was dripping blue. "Just wait, you
wretch!"

In her turn she seized a bucket, and emptied it over Gervaise. Then a
formidable battle began. They both ran along the rows of tubs, seized
hold of the pails that were full, and returned to dash the contents at
each other's heads. And each deluge was accompanied by a volley of
words. Gervaise herself answered now:

"There, you scum! You got it that time. It'll help to cool you."

"Ah! the carrion! That's for your filth. Wash yourself for once in
your life."

"Yes, yes, I'll wash the salt out of you, you cod!"

"Another one! Brush your teeth, fix yourself up for your post to-night
at the corner of the Rue Belhomme."

They ended by having to refill the buckets at the water taps,
continuing to insult each other the while. The initial bucketfuls were
so poorly aimed as to scarcely reach their targets, but they soon
began to splash each other in earnest. Virginie was the first to
receive a bucketful in the face. The water ran down, soaking her back
and front. She was still staggering when another caught her from the
side, hitting her left ear and drenching her chignon which then came
unwound into a limp, bedraggled string of hair.

Gervaise was hit first in the legs. One pail filled her shoes full of
water and splashed up to her thighs. Two more wet her even higher.
Soon both of them were soaked from top to bottom and it was impossible
to count the hits. Their clothes were plastered to their bodies and
they looked shrunken. Water was dripping everywhere as from umbrellas
in a rainstorm.

"They look jolly funny!" said the hoarse voice of one of the women.

Everyone in the wash-house was highly amused. A good space was left to
the combatants, as nobody cared to get splashed. Applause and jokes
circulated in the midst of the sluice-like noise of the buckets
emptied in rapid succession! On the floor the puddles were running one
into another, and the two women were wading in them up to their
ankles. Virginie, however, who had been meditating a treacherous move,
suddenly seized hold of a pail of lye, which one of her neighbors had
left there and threw it. The same cry arose from all. Everyone thought
Gervaise was scalded; but only her left foot had been slightly
touched. And, exasperated by the pain, she seized a bucket, without
troubling herself to fill it this time, and threw it with all her
might at the legs of Virginie, who fell to the ground. All the women
spoke together.

"She's broken one of her limbs!"

"Well, the other tried to cook her!"

"She's right, after all, the blonde one, if her man's been taken from
her!"

Madame Boche held up her arms to heaven, uttering all sorts of
exclamations. She had prudently retreated out of the way between two
tubs; and the children, Claude and Etienne, crying, choking,
terrified, clung to her dress with the continuous cry of "Mamma!
Mamma!" broken by their sobs. When she saw Virginie fall she hastened
forward, and tried to pull Gervaise away by her skirt, repeating the
while,

"Come now, go home! Be reasonable. On my word, it's quite upset me.
Never was such a butchery seen before."

But she had to draw back and seek refuge again between the two tubs,
with the children. Virginie had just flown at Gervaise's throat. She
squeezed her round the neck, trying to strangle her. The latter freed
herself with a violent jerk, and in her turn hung on to the other's
hair, as though she was trying to pull her head off. The battle was
silently resumed, without a cry, without an insult. They did not seize
each other round the body, they attacked each other's faces with open
hands and clawing fingers, pinching, scratching whatever they caught
hold of. The tall, dark girl's red ribbon and blue silk hair net were
torn off. The body of her dress, giving way at the neck, displayed a
large portion of her shoulder; whilst the blonde, half stripped, a
sleeve gone from her loose white jacket without her knowing how, had a
rent in her underlinen, which exposed to view the naked line of her
waist. Shreds of stuff flew in all directions. It was from Gervaise
that the first blood was drawn, three long scratches from the mouth to
the chin; and she sought to protect her eyes, shutting them at every
grab the other made, for fear of having them torn out. No blood showed
on Virginie as yet. Gervaise aimed at her ears, maddened at not being
able to reach them. At length she succeeded in seizing hold of one of
the earrings--an imitation pear in yellow glass--which she pulled out
and slit the ear, and the blood flowed.

"They're killing each other! Separate them, the vixens!" exclaimed
several voices.

The other women had drawn nearer. They formed themselves into two
camps. Some were cheering the combatants on as the others were
trembling and turning their heads away saying that it was making them
sick. A large fight nearly broke out between the two camps as the
women called each other names and brandished their fists
threateningly. Three loud slaps rang out.

Madame Boche, meanwhile, was trying to discover the wash-house boy.

"Charles! Charles! Wherever has he got to?"

And she found him in the front rank, looking on with his arms folded.
He was a big fellow, with an enormous neck. He was laughing and
enjoying the sight of the skin which the two women displayed. The
little blonde was as fat as a quail. It would be fun if her chemise
burst open.

"Why," murmured he, blinking his eye, "she's got a strawberry
birthmark under her arm."

"What! You're there!" cried Madame Boche, as she caught sight of him.
"Just come and help us separate them. You can easily separate them,
you can!"

"Oh, no! thank you, not if I know it," said he coolly. "To get my eye
scratched like I did the other day, I suppose! I'm not here for that
sort of thing; I have enough to do without that. Don't be afraid, a
little bleeding does 'em good; it'll soften 'em."

The concierge then talked of fetching the police; but the mistress of
the wash-house, the delicate young woman with the red, inflamed eyes,
would not allow her to do this. She kept saying:

"No, no, I won't; it'll compromise my establishment."

The struggle on the ground continued. All on a sudden, Virginie raised
herself up on her knees. She had just gotten hold of a beetle and held
it on high. She had a rattle in her throat and in an altered voice,
she exclaimed,

"Here's something that'll settle you! Get your dirty linen ready!"

Gervaise quickly thrust out her hand, and also seized a beetle, and
held it up like a club; and she too spoke in a choking voice,

"Ah! you want to wash. Let me get hold of your skin that I may beat it
into dish-cloths!"

For a moment they remained there, on their knees, menacing each other.
Their hair all over their faces, their breasts heaving, muddy,
swelling with rage, they watched one another, as they waited and took
breath. Gervaise gave the first blow. Her beetle glided off Virginie's
shoulder, and she at once threw herself on one side to avoid the
latter's beetle, which grazed her hip. Then, warming to their work
they struck at each other like washerwomen beating clothes, roughly,
and in time. Whenever there was a hit, the sound was deadened, so that
one might have thought it a blow in a tub full of water. The other
women around them no longer laughed. Several had gone off saying that
it quite upset them; those who remained stretched out their necks,
their eyes lighted up with a gleam of cruelty, admiring the pluck
displayed. Madame Boche had led Claude and Etienne away, and one could
hear at the other end of the building the sound of their sobs, mingled
with the sonorous shocks of the two beetles. But Gervaise suddenly
yelled. Virginie had caught her a whack with all her might on her bare
arm, just above the elbow. A large red mark appeared, the flesh at
once began to swell. Then she threw herself upon Virginie, and
everyone thought she was going to beat her to death.

"Enough! Enough!" was cried on all sides.

Her face bore such a terrible expression, that no one dared approach
her. Her strength seemed to have increased tenfold. She seized
Virginie round the waist, bent her down and pressed her face against
the flagstones. Raising her beetle she commenced beating as she used
to beat at Plassans, on the banks of the Viorne, when her mistress
washed the clothes of the garrison. The wood seemed to yield to the
flesh with a damp sound. At each whack a red weal marked the white
skin.

"Oh, oh!" exclaimed the boy Charles, opening his eyes to their full
extent and gloating over the sight.

Laughter again burst forth from the lookers-on, but soon the cry,
"Enough! Enough!" recommenced. Gervaise heard not, neither did she
tire. She examined her work, bent over it, anxious not to leave a dry
place. She wanted to see the whole of that skin beaten, covered with
contusions. And she talked, seized with a ferocious gaiety, recalling
a washerwoman's song,

  "Bang! Bang! Margot at her tub.
   Bang! Bang! Beating rub-a-dub.
   Bang! Bang! Tries to wash her heart.
   Bang! Bang! Black with grief to part."

And then she resumed,

  "That's for you, that's for your sister.
   That's for Lantier.
   When you next see them,
   You can give them that.
   Attention! I'm going to begin again.
   That's for Lantier, that's for your sister.
   That's for you.
   Bang! Bang! Margot at her tub.
   Bang! Bang! Beating rub-a-dub--"

The others were obliged to drag Virginie away from her. The tall, dark
girl, her face bathed in tears and purple with shame, picked up her
things and hastened away. She was vanquished. Gervaise slipped on the
sleeve of her jacket again, and fastened up her petticoats. Her arm
pained her a good deal, and she asked Madame Boche to place her bundle
of clothes on her shoulder. The concierge referred to the battle,
spoke of her emotions, and talked of examining the young woman's
person, just to see.

"You may, perhaps, have something broken. I heard a tremendous blow."

But Gervaise wanted to go home. She made no reply to the pitying
remarks and noisy ovation of the other women who surrounded her, erect
in their aprons. When she was laden she gained the door, where the
children awaited her.

"Two hours, that makes two sous," said the mistress of the wash-house,
already back at her post in the glazed closet.

Why two sous? She no longer understood that she was asked to pay for
her place there. Then she gave the two sous; and limping very much
beneath the weight of the wet clothes on her shoulder, the water
dripping from off her, her elbow black and blue, her cheek covered
with blood, she went off, dragging Claude and Etienne with her bare
arms, whilst they trotted along on either side of her, still
trembling, and their faces besmeared with their tears.

Once she was gone, the wash-house resumed its roaring tumult. The
washerwomen had eaten their bread and drunk their wine. Their faces
were lit up and their spirits enlivened by the fight between Gervaise
and Virginie.

The long lines of tubs were astir again with the fury of thrashing
arms, of craggy profiles, of marionettes with bent backs and slumping
shoulders that twisted and jerked violently as though on hinges.
Conversations went on from one end to the other in loud voices.
Laughter and coarse remarks crackled through the ceaseless gurgling of
the water. Faucets were sputtering, buckets spilling, rivulets flowing
underneath the rows of washboards. Throughout the huge shed rising
wisps of steam reflected a reddish tint, pierced here and there by
disks of sunlight, golden globes that had leaked through holes in the
awnings. The air was stiflingly warm and odorous with soap.

Suddenly the hall was filled with a white mist. The huge copper lid of
the lye-water kettle was rising mechanically along a notched shaft,
and from the gaping copper hollow within its wall of bricks came
whirling clouds of vapor. Meanwhile, at one side the drying machines
were hard at work; within their cast-iron cylinders bundles of laundry
were being wrung dry by the centrifugal force of the steam engine,
which was still puffing, steaming, jolting the wash-house with the
ceaseless labor of its iron limbs.

When Gervaise turned into the entry of the Hotel Boncoeur, her tears
again mastered her. It was a dark, narrow passage, with a gutter for
the dirty water running alongside the wall; and the stench which she
again encountered there caused her to think of the fortnight she had
passed in the place with Lantier--a fortnight of misery and quarrels,
the recollection of which was now a bitter regret. It seemed to bring
her abandonment home to her.

Upstairs the room was bare, in spite of the sunshine which entered
through the open window. That blaze of light, that kind of dancing
golden dust, exposed the lamentable condition of the blackened
ceiling, and of the walls half denuded of paper, all the more. The
only thing left hanging in the room was a woman's small neckerchief,
twisted like a piece of string. The children's bedstead, drawn into
the middle of the apartment, displayed the chest of drawers, the open
drawers of which exposed their emptiness. Lantier had washed himself
and had used up the last of the pomatum--two sous' worth of pomatum in
a playing card; the greasy water from his hands filled the basin. And
he had forgotten nothing. The corner which until then had been filled
by the trunk seemed to Gervaise an immense empty space. Even the little
mirror which hung on the window-fastening was gone. When she made this
discovery, she had a presentiment. She looked on the mantel-piece.
Lantier had taken away the pawn tickets; the pink bundle was no longer
there, between the two odd zinc candlesticks.

She hung her laundry over the back of a chair and just stood there,
gazing around at the furniture. She was so dulled and bewildered that
she could no longer cry. She had only one sou left. Then, hearing
Claude and Etienne laughing merrily by the window, their troubles
already forgotten, she went to them and put her arms about them,
losing herself for a moment in contemplation of that long gray avenue
where, that very morning, she had watched the awakening of the working
population, of the immense work-shop of Paris.

At this hour immense heat was rising from the pavement and from all
the furnaces in the factories, setting alight a reflecting oven over
the city and beyond the octroi wall. Out upon this very pavement, into
this furnace blast, she had been tossed, alone with her little ones.
As she glanced up and down the boulevard, she was seized with a dull
dread that her life would be fixed there forever, between a slaughter-
house and a hospital.



                             CHAPTER II.

Three weeks later, towards half-past eleven, one beautiful sunshiny
day, Gervaise and Coupeau, the zinc-worker, were each partaking of a
plum preserved in brandy, at "l'Assommoir" kept by Pere Colombe.
Coupeau, who had been smoking a cigarette on the pavement, had
prevailed on her to go inside as she returned from taking home a
customer's washing; and her big square laundress's basket was on the
floor beside her, behind the little zinc covered table.

Pere Colombe's l'Assommoir was at the corner of Rue des Poissonniers
and Boulevard de Rochechouart. The sign, in tall blue letters
stretching from one end to the other said: Distillery. Two dusty
oleanders planted in half casks stood beside the doorway. A long bar
with its tin measuring cups was on the left as you entered. The large
room was decorated with casks painted a gay yellow, bright with
varnish, and gleaming with copper taps and hoops.

On the shelves above the bar were liquor bottles, jars of fruit
preserved in brandy, and flasks of all shapes. They completely covered
the wall and were reflected in the mirror behind the bar as colorful
spots of apple green, pale gold, and soft brown. The main feature of
the establishment, however, was the distilling apparatus. It was at
the rear, behind an oak railing in a glassed-in area. The customers
could watch its functioning, long-necked still-pots, copper worms
disappearing underground, a devil's kitchen alluring to drink-sodden
work men in search of pleasant dreams.

L'Assommoir was nearly empty at the lunch hour. Pere Colombe, a heavy
man of forty, was serving a ten year old girl who had asked him to
place four sous' worth of brandy into her cup. A shaft of sunlight
came through the entrance to warm the floor which was always damp from
the smokers' spitting. From everything, the casks, the bar, the entire
room, a liquorish odor arose, an alcoholic aroma which seemed to
thicken and befuddle the dust motes dancing in the sunlight.

Coupeau was making another cigarette. He was very neat, in a short
blue linen blouse and cap, and was laughing and showing his white
teeth. With a projecting under jaw and a slightly snub nose, he had
handsome chestnut eyes, and the face of a jolly dog and a thorough
good fellow. His coarse curly hair stood erect. His skin still
preserved the softness of his twenty-six years. Opposite to him,
Gervaise, in a thin black woolen dress, and bareheaded, was finishing
her plum which she held by the stalk between the tips of her fingers.
They were close to the street, at the first of the four tables placed
alongside the barrels facing the bar.

When the zinc-worker had lit his cigarette, he placed his elbows on
the table, thrust his face forward, and for an instant looked without
speaking at the young woman, whose pretty fair face had that day the
milky transparency of china. Then, alluding to a matter known to
themselves alone, and already discussed between them, he simply asked
in a low voice:

"So it's to be 'no'? you say 'no'?"

"Oh! most decidedly 'no' Monsieur Coupeau," quietly replied Gervaise
with a smile. "I hope you're not going to talk to me about that here.
You know you promised me you would be reasonable. Had I known, I
wouldn't have let you treat me."

Coupeau kept silence, looking at her intently with a boldness. She sat
still, at ease and friendly. At the end of a brief silence she added:

"You can't really mean it. I'm an old woman; I've a big boy eight
years old. Whatever could we two do together?"

"Why!" murmured Coupeau, blinking his eyes, "what the others do, of
course, get married!"

She made a gesture of feeling annoyed. "Oh! do you think it's always
pleasant? One can very well see you've never seen much of living. No,
Monsieur Coupeau, I must think of serious things. Burdening oneself
never leads to anything, you know! I've two mouths at home which are
never tired of swallowing, I can tell you! How do you suppose I can
bring up my little ones, if I only sit here talking indolently? And
listen, besides that, my misfortune has been a famous lesson to me.
You know I don't care a bit about men now. They won't catch me again
for a long while."

She spoke with such cool objectivity that it was clear she had
resolved this in her mind, turning it about thoroughly.

Coupeau was deeply moved and kept repeating: "I feel so sorry for you.
It causes me a great deal of pain."

"Yes, I know that," resumed she, "and I am sorry, Monsieur Coupeau.
But you mustn't take it to heart. If I had any idea of enjoying
myself, /mon Dieu!/, I would certainly rather be with you than anyone
else. You're a good boy and gentle. Only, where's the use, as I've no
inclination to wed? I've been for the last fortnight, now, at Madame
Fauconnier's. The children go to school. I've work, I'm contented. So
the best is to remain as we are, isn't it?"

And she stooped down to take her basket.

"You're making me talk; they must be expecting me at the shop. You'll
easily find someone else prettier than I, Monsieur Coupeau, and who
won't have two boys to drag about with her."

He looked at the clock inserted in the frame-work of the mirror, and
made her sit down again, exclaiming:

"Don't be in such a hurry! It's only eleven thirty-five. I've still
twenty-five minutes. You don't have to be afraid that I shall do
anything foolish; there's the table between us. So you detest me so
much that you won't stay and have a little chat with me."

She put her basket down again, so as not to disoblige him; and they
conversed like good friends. She had eaten her lunch before going out
with the laundry. He had gulped down his soup and beef hurriedly to be
able to wait for her. All the while she chatted amiably, Gervaise kept
looking out the window at the activity on the street. It was now
unusually crowded with the lunch time rush.

Everywhere were hurried steps, swinging arms, and pushing elbows. Some
late comers, hungry and angry at being kept extra long at the job,
rushed across the street into the bakery. They emerged with a loaf of
bread and went three doors farther to the Two-Headed Calf to gobble
down a six-sou meat dish.

Next door to the bakery was a grocer who sold fried potatoes and
mussels cooked with parsley. A procession of girls went in to get hot
potatoes wrapped in paper and cups of steaming mussels. Other pretty
girls bought bunches of radishes. By leaning a bit, Gervaise could see
into the sausage shop from which children issued, holding a fried
chop, a sausage or a piece of hot blood pudding wrapped in greasy
paper. The street was always slick with black mud, even in clear
weather. A few laborers had already finished their lunch and were
strolling aimlessly about, their open hands slapping their thighs,
heavy from eating, slow and peaceful amid the hurrying crowd. A group
formed in front of the door of l'Assommoir.

"Say, Bibi-the-Smoker," demanded a hoarse voice, "aren't you going to
buy us a round of /vitriol/?"

Five laborers came in and stood by the bar.

"Ah! Here's that thief, Pere Colombe!" the voice continued. "We want
the real old stuff, you know. And full sized glasses, too."

Pere Colombe served them as three more laborers entered. More blue
smocks gathered on the street corner and some pushed their way into
the establishment.

"You're foolish! You only think of the present," Gervaise was saying
to Coupeau. "Sure, I loved him, but after the disgusting way in which
he left me--"

They were talking of Lantier. Gervaise had not seen him again; she
thought he was living with Virginie's sister at La Glaciere, in the
house of that friend who was going to start a hat factory. She had no
thought of running after him. She had been so distressed at first that
she had thought of drowning herself in the river. But now that she had
thought about it, everything seemed to be for the best. Lantier went
through money so fast, that she probably never could have raised her
children properly. Oh, she'd let him see his children, all right, if
he bothered to come round. But as far as she was concerned, she didn't
want him to touch her, not even with his finger tips.

She told all this to Coupeau just as if her plan of life was well
settled. Meanwhile, Coupeau never forgot his desire to possess her. He
made a jest of everything she said, turning it into ribaldry and
asking some very direct questions about Lantier. But he proceeded so
gaily and which such a smile that she never thought of being offended.

"So, you're the one who beat him," said he at length. "Oh! you're not
kind. You just go around whipping people."

She interrupted him with a hearty laugh. It was true, though, she had
whipped Virginie's tall carcass. She would have delighted in
strangling someone on that day. She laughed louder than ever when
Coupeau told her that Virginie, ashamed at having shown so much
cowardice, had left the neighborhood. Her face, however, preserved an
expression of childish gentleness as she put out her plump hands,
insisting she wouldn't even harm a fly.

She began to tell Coupeau about her childhood at Plassans. She had
never cared overmuch for men; they had always bored her. She was
fourteen when she got involved with Lantier. She had thought it was
nice because he said he was her husband and she had enjoyed playing a
housewife. She was too soft-hearted and too weak. She always got
passionately fond of people who caused her trouble later. When she
loved a man, she wasn't thinking of having fun in the present; she was
dreaming about being happy and living together forever.

And as Coupeau, with a chuckle, spoke of her two children, saying they
hadn't come from under a bolster, she slapped his fingers; she added
that she was, no doubt made on the model of other women; women thought
of their home, slaved to keep the place clean and tidy, and went to
bed too tired at night not to go to sleep at once. Besides, she
resembled her mother, a stout laboring woman who died at her work and
who had served as beast of burden to old Macquart for more than twenty
years. Her mother's shoulders had been heavy enough to smash through
doors, but that didn't prevent her from being soft-hearted and madly
attracted to people. And if she limped a little, she no doubt owed
that to the poor woman, whom old Macquart used to belabor with blows.
Her mother had told her about the times when Macquart came home drunk
and brutally bruised her. She had probably been born with her lame leg
as a result of one of those times.

"Oh! it's scarcely anything, it's hardly perceptible," said Coupeau
gallantly.

She shook her head; she knew well enough that it could be seen; at
forty she would look broken in two. Then she added gently, with a
slight laugh: "It's a funny fancy of yours to fall in love with a
cripple."

With his elbows still on the table, he thrust his face closer to hers
and began complimenting her in rather dubious language as though to
intoxicate her with his words. But she kept shaking her head "no," and
didn't allow herself to be tempted although she was flattered by the
tone of his voice. While listening, she kept looking out the window,
seeming to be fascinated by the interesting crowd of people passing.

The shops were now almost empty. The grocer removed his last panful of
fried potatoes from the stove. The sausage man arranged the dishes
scattered on his counter. Great bearded workmen were as playful as
young boys, clumping along in their hobnailed boots. Other workmen
were smoking, staring up into the sky and blinking their eyes. Factory
bells began to ring in the distance, but the workers, in no hurry,
relit their pipes. Later, after being tempted by one wineshop after
another, they finally decided to return to their jobs, but were still
dragging their feet.

Gervaise amused herself by watching three workmen, a tall fellow and
two short ones who turned to look back every few yards; they ended by
descending the street, and came straight to Pere Colombe's
l'Assommoir.

"Ah, well," murmured she, "there're three fellows who don't seem
inclined for work!"

"Why!" said Coupeau, "I know the tall one, it's My-Boots, a comrade of
mine."

Pere Colombe's l'Assommoir was now full. You had to shout to be heard.
Fists often pounded on the bar, causing the glasses to clink. Everyone
was standing, hands crossed over belly or held behind back. The
drinking groups crowded close to one another. Some groups, by the
casks, had to wait a quarter of an hour before being able to order
their drinks of Pere Colombe.

"Hallo! It's that aristocrat, Young Cassis!" cried My-Boots, bringing
his hand down roughly on Coupeau's shoulder. A fine gentleman, who
smokes paper, and wears shirts! So we want to do the grand with our
sweetheart; we stand her little treats!"

"Shut up! Don't bother me!" replied Coupeau, greatly annoyed.

But the other added, with a chuckle, "Right you are! We know what's
what, my boy. Muffs are muffs, that's all!"

He turned his back after leering terribly as he looked at Gervaise.
The latter drew back, feeling rather frightened. The smoke from the
pipes, the strong odor of all those men, ascended in the air, already
foul with the fumes of alcohol; and she felt a choking sensation in
her throat, and coughed slightly.

"Oh, what a horrible thing it is to drink!" said she in a low voice.

And she related that formerly at Plassans she used to drink anisette
with her mother. But on one occasion it nearly killed her, and that
disgusted her with it; now, she could never touch any liqueurs.

"You see," added she, pointing to her glass, "I've eaten my plum; only
I must leave the juice, because it would make me ill."

For himself, Coupeau couldn't understand how anyone could drink glass
after glass of cheap brandy. A brandied plum occasionally could not
hurt, but as for cheap brandy, absinthe and the other strong stuff,
no, not for him, no matter how much his comrades teased him about it.
He stayed out on the sidewalk when his friends went into low
establishments. Coupeau's father had smashed his head open one day
when he fell from the eaves of No. 25 on Rue Coquenard. He was drunk.
This memory keep Coupeau's entire family from the drink. Every time
Coupeau passed that spot, he thought he would rather lick up water
from the gutter than accept a free drink in a bar. He would always
say: "In our trade, you have to have steady legs."

Gervaise had taken up her basket again. She did not rise from her seat
however, but held the basket on her knees, with a vacant look in her
eyes and lost in thought, as though the young workman's words had
awakened within her far-off thoughts of existence. And she said again,
slowly, and without any apparent change of manner:

"/Mon Dieu/! I'm not ambitious; I don't ask for much. My desire is to
work in peace, always to have bread to eat and a decent place to sleep
in, you know; with a bed, a table, and two chairs, nothing more. If I
can, I'd like to raise my children to be good citizens. Also, I'd like
not to be beaten up, if I ever again live with a man. It's not my idea
of amusement." She pondered, thinking if there was anything else she
wanted, but there wasn't anything of importance. Then, after a moment
she went on, "Yes, when one reaches the end, one might wish to die in
one's bed. For myself, having trudged through life, I should like to
die in my bed, in my own home."

And she rose from her seat. Coupeau, who cordially approved her
wishes, was already standing up, anxious about the time. But they did
not leave yet. Gervaise was curious enough to go to the far end of the
room for a look at the big still behind the oak railing. It was
chugging away in the little glassed-in courtyard. Coupeau explained
its workings to her, pointing at the different parts of the machinery,
showing her the trickling of the small stream of limpid alcohol. Not a
single gay puff of steam was coming forth from the endless coils. The
breathing could barely be heard. It sounded muffled as if from
underground. It was like a sombre worker, performing dark deeds in the
bright daylight, strong but silent.

My-Boots, accompanied by his two comrades, came to lean on the railing
until they could get a place at the bar. He laughed, looking at the
machine. /Tonnerre de Dieu/, that's clever. There's enough stuff in
its big belly to last for weeks. He wouldn't mind if they just fixed
the end of the tube in his mouth, so he could feel the fiery spirits
flowing down to his heels like a river. It would be better than the
tiny sips doled out by Pere Colombe! His two comrades laughed with
him, saying that My-Boots was quite a guy after all.

The huge still continued to trickle forth its alcoholic sweat.
Eventually it would invade the bar, flow out along the outer
Boulevards, and inundate the immense expanse of Paris.

Gervaise stepped back, shivering. She tried to smile as she said:

"It's foolish, but that still and the liquor gives me the creeps."

Then, returning to the idea she nursed of a perfect happiness, she
resumed: "Now, ain't I right? It's much the nicest isn't it--to have
plenty of work, bread to eat, a home of one's own, and to be able to
bring up one's children and to die in one's bed?"

"And never to be beaten," added Coupeau gaily. "But I would never beat
you, if you would only try me, Madame Gervaise. You've no cause for
fear. I don't drink and then I love you too much. Come, shall it be
marriage? I'll get you divorced and make you my wife."

He was speaking low, whispering at the back of her neck while she made
her way through the crowd of men with her basket held before her. She
kept shaking her head "no." Yet she turned around to smile at him,
apparently happy to know that he never drank. Yes, certainly, she
would say "yes" to him, except she had already sworn to herself never
to start up with another man. Eventually they reached the door and
went out.

When they left, l'Assommoir was packed to the door, spilling its
hubbub of rough voices and its heavy smell of vitriol into the street.
My-Boots could be heard railing at Pere Colombe, calling him a
scoundrel and accusing him of only half filling his glass. He didn't
have to come in here. He'd never come back. He suggested to his
comrades a place near the Barriere Saint-Denis where you drank good
stuff straight.

"Ah," sighed Gervaise when they reached the sidewalk. "You can breathe
out here. Good-bye, Monsieur Coupeau, and thank you. I must hurry
now."

He seized her hand as she started along the boulevard, insisting,
"Take a walk with me along Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. It's not much
farther for you. I've got to see my sister before going back to work.
We'll keep each other company."

In the end, Gervaise agreed and they walked beside each other along
the Rue des Poissonniers, although she did not take his arm. He told
her about his family. His mother, an old vest-maker, now had to do
housekeeping because her eyesight was poor. Her birthday was the third
of last month and she was sixty-two. He was the youngest. One of his
sisters, a widow of thirty-six, worked in a flower shop and lived in
the Batignolles section, on Rue des Moines. The other sister was
thirty years old now. She had married a deadpan chainmaker named
Lorilleux. That's where he was going now. They lived in a big tenement
on the left side. He ate with them in the evenings; it saved a bit for
all of them. But he had been invited out this evening and he was going
to tell her not to expect him.

Gervaise, who was listening to him, suddenly interrupted him to ask,
with a smile: "So you're called 'Young Cassis,' Monsieur Coupeau?"

"Oh!" replied he, "it's a nickname my mates have given me because I
generally drink 'cassis' when they force me to accompany them to the
wineshop. It's no worse to be called Young Cassis than My-Boots, is
it?"

"Of course not. Young Cassis isn't an ugly name," observed the young
woman.

And she questioned him about his work. He was still working there,
behind the octroi wall at the new hospital. Oh! there was no want of
work, he would not be finished there for a year at least. There were
yards and yards of gutters!

"You know," said he, "I can see the Hotel Boncoeur when I'm up there.
Yesterday you were at the window, and I waved my arms, but you didn't
notice me."

They had already gone about a hundred paces along the Rue de la
Goutte-d'Or, when he stood still and raising his eyes, said:

"That's the house. I was born farther on, at No. 22. But this house
is, all the same, a fine block of masonry! It's as big as a barrack
inside!"

Gervaise looked up, examining the facade. On the street side, the
tenement had five stories, each with fifteen windows, whose black
shutters with their broken slats gave an air of desolation to the wide
expanse of wall. Four shops occupied the ground floor. To the right of
the entrance, a large, greasy hash house, and to the left, a coal
dealer, a notions seller, and an umbrella merchant. The building
appeared even larger than it was because it had on each side a small,
low building which seemed to lean against it for support. This
immense, squared-off building was outlined against the sky. Its
unplastered side walls were as bare as prison walls, except for rows
of roughly jutting stones which suggested jaws full of decayed teeth
yawning vacantly.

Gervaise was gazing at the entrance with interest. The high, arched
doorway rose to the second floor and opened onto a deep porch, at the
end of which could be seen the pale daylight of a courtyard. This
entranceway was paved like the street, and down the center flowed a
streamlet of pink-stained water.

"Come in," said Coupeau, "no one will eat you."

Gervaise wanted to wait for him in the street. However, she could not
resist going through the porch as far as the concierge's room on the
right. And there, on the threshold, she raised her eyes. Inside, the
building was six stories high, with four identical plain walls
enclosing the broad central court. The drab walls were corroded by
yellowish spots and streaked by drippings from the roof gutters. The
walls went straight up to the eaves with no molding or ornament except
the angles on the drain pipes at each floor. Here the sink drains
added their stains. The glass window panes resembled murky water.
Mattresses of checkered blue ticking were hanging out of several
windows to air. Clothes lines stretched from other windows with family
washing hanging to dry. On a third floor line was a baby's diaper,
still implanted with filth. This crowded tenement was bursting at the
seams, spilling out poverty and misery through every crevice.

Each of the four walls had, at ground level, a narrow entrance,
plastered without a trace of woodwork. This opened into a vestibule
containing a dirt-encrusted staircase which spiraled upward. They were
each labeled with one of the first four letters of the alphabet
painted on the wall.

Several large work-shops with weather-blackened skylights were
scattered about the court. Near the concierge's room was the dyeing
establishment responsible for the pink streamlet. Puddles of water
infested the courtyard, along with wood shavings and coal cinders.
Grass and weeds grew between the paving stones. The unforgiving
sunlight seemed to cut the court into two parts. On the shady side was
a dripping water tap with three small hens scratching for worms with
their filth-smeared claws.

Gervaise slowly gazed about, lowering her glance from the sixth floor
to the paving stones, then raising it again, surprised at the
vastness, feeling as it were in the midst of a living organ, in the
very heart of a city, and interested in the house, as though it were a
giant before her.

"Is madame seeking for any one?" called out the inquisitive concierge,
emerging from her room.

The young woman explained that she was waiting for a friend. She
returned to the street; then as Coupeau did not come, she went back to
the courtyard seized with the desire to take another look. She did not
think the house ugly. Amongst the rags hanging from the windows she
discovered various cheerful touches--a wall-flower blooming in a pot,
a cage of chirruping canaries, shaving-glasses shining like stars in
the depth of the shadow. A carpenter was singing in his work-shop,
accompanied by the whining of his plane. The blacksmith's hammers were
ringing rhythmically.

In contrast to the apparent wretched poverty, at nearly every open
window appeared the begrimed faces of laughing children. Women with
peaceful faces could be seen bent over their sewing. The rooms were
empty of men who had gone back to work after lunch. The whole tenement
was tranquil except for the sounds from the work-shops below which
served as a sort of lullaby that went on, unceasingly, always the
same.

The only thing she did not like was the courtyard's dampness. She
would want rooms at the rear, on the sunny side. Gervaise took a few
more steps into the courtyard, inhaling the characteristic odor of the
slums, comprised of dust and rotten garbage. But the sharp odor of the
waste water from the dye shop was strong, and Gervaise thought it
smelled better here than at the Hotel Boncoeur. She chose a window for
herself, the one at the far left with a small window box planted with
scarlet runners.

"I'm afraid I've kept you waiting rather a long time," said Coupeau,
whom she suddenly heard close beside her. "They always make an awful
fuss whenever I don't dine with them, and it was worse than ever
to-day as my sister had bought some veal."

And as Gervaise had slightly started with surprise, he continued
glancing around in his turn:

"You were looking at the house. It's always all let from the top to
the bottom. There are three hundred lodgers, I think. If I had any
furniture, I would have secured a small room. One would be comfortable
here, don't you think so?"

"Yes, one would be comfortable," murmured Gervaise. "In our street at
Plassans there weren't near so many people. Look, that's pretty--that
window up on the fifth floor, with the scarlet runners."

The zinc-worker's obstinate desire made him ask her once more whether
she would or she wouldn't. They could rent a place here as soon as
they found a bed. She hurried out the arched entranceway, asking him
not to start that subject again. There was as much chance of this
building collapsing as there was of her sleeping under the same
blanket with him. Still, when Coupeau left her in front of Madame
Fauconnier's shop, he was allowed to hold her hand for a moment.

For a month the young woman and the zinc-worker were the best of
friends. He admired her courage, when he beheld her half killing
herself with work, keeping her children tidy and clean, and yet
finding time at night to do a little sewing. Often other women were
hopelessly messy, forever nibbling or gadding about, but she wasn't
like them at all. She was much too serious. Then she would laugh, and
modestly defend herself. It was her misfortune that she had not always
been good, having been with a man when only fourteen. Then too, she
had often helped her mother empty a bottle of anisette. But she had
learned a few things from experience. He was wrong to think of her as
strong-willed; her will power was very weak. She had always let
herself be pushed into things because she didn't want to hurt
someone's feelings. Her one hope now was to live among decent people,
for living among bad people was like being hit over the head. It
cracks your skull. Whenever she thought of the future, she shivered.
Everything she had seen in life so far, especially when a child, had
given her lessons to remember.

Coupeau, however, chaffed her about her gloomy thoughts, and brought
back all her courage by trying to pinch her hips. She pushed him away
from her, and slapped his hands, whilst he called out laughingly that,
for a weak woman, she was not a very easy capture. He, who always
joked about everything did not trouble himself regarding the future.
One day followed another, that was all. There would always be
somewhere to sleep and a bite to eat. The neighborhood seemed decent
enough to him, except for a gang of drunkards that ought to be cleaned
out of the gutters.

Coupeau was not a bad sort of fellow. He sometimes had really sensible
things to say. He was something of a dandy with his Parisian working
man's gift for banter, a regular gift of gab, and besides, he was
attractive.

They had ended by rendering each other all sorts of services at the
Hotel Boncoeur. Coupeau fetched her milk, ran her errands, carried her
bundles of clothes; often of an evening, as he got home first from
work, he took the children for a walk on the exterior Boulevard.
Gervaise, in return for his polite attentions, would go up into the
narrow room at the top of the house where he slept, and see to his
clothes, sewing buttons on his blue linen trousers, and mending his
linen jackets. A great familiarity existed between them. She was never
bored when he was around. The gay songs he sang amused her, and so did
his continuous banter of jokes and jibes characteristic of the Paris
streets, this being still new to her.

On Coupeau's side, this continual familiarity inflamed him more and
more until it began to seriously bother him. He began to feel tense
and uneasy. He continued with his foolish talk, never failing to ask
her, "When will it be?" She understood what he meant and teased him.
He would then come to visit her carrying his bedroom slippers, as if
he were moving in. She joked about it and continued calmly without
blushing at the allusions with which he was always surrounding her.
She stood for anything from him as long as he didn't get rough. She
only got angry once when he pulled a strand of her hair while trying
to force a kiss from her.

Towards the end of June, Coupeau lost his liveliness. He became most
peculiar. Gervaise, feeling uneasy at some of his glances, barricaded
herself in at night. Then, after having sulked ever since the Sunday,
he suddenly came on the Tuesday night about eleven o'clock and knocked
at her room. She would not open to him; but his voice was so gentle
and so trembling that she ended by removing the chest of drawers she
had pushed against the door. When he entered, she thought he was ill;
he looked so pale, his eyes were so red, and the veins on his face
were all swollen. And he stood there, stuttering and shaking his head.
No, no, he was not ill. He had been crying for two hours upstairs in
his room; he wept like a child, biting his pillow so as not to be
heard by the neighbors. For three nights past he had been unable to
sleep. It could not go on like that.

"Listen, Madame Gervaise," said he, with a swelling in his throat and
on the point of bursting out crying again; "we must end this, mustn't
we? We'll go and get married. It's what I want. I've quite made up my
mind."

Gervaise showed great surprise. She was very grave.

"Oh! Monsieur Coupeau," murmured she, "whatever are you thinking of?
You know I've never asked you for that. I didn't care about it--that
was all. Oh, no, no! it's serious now; think of what you're saying, I
beg of you."

But he continued to shake his head with an air of unalterable
resolution. He had already thought it all over. He had come down
because he wanted to have a good night. She wasn't going to send him
back to weep again he supposed! As soon as she said "yes," he would no
longer bother her, and she could go quietly to bed. He only wanted to
hear her say "yes." They could talk it over on the morrow.

"But I certainly can't say 'yes' just like that," resumed Gervaise. "I
don't want you to be able to accuse me later on of having incited you
to do a foolish thing. You shouldn't be so insistent, Monsieur
Coupeau. You can't really be sure that you're in love with me. If you
didn't see me for a week, it might fade away. Sometimes men get
married and then there's day after day, stretching out into an entire
lifetime, and they get pretty well bored by it all. Sit down there;
I'm willing to talk it over at once."

Then until one in the morning, in the dark room and by the faint light
of a smoky tallow candle which they forgot to snuff, they talked of
their marriage, lowering their voices so as not to wake the two
children, Claude and Etienne, who were sleeping, both heads on the
same pillow. Gervaise kept pointing out the children to Coupeau, what
a funny kind of dowry they were. She really shouldn't burden him with
them. Besides, what would the neighbors say? She'd feel ashamed for
him because everyone knew about the story of her life and her lover.
They wouldn't think it decent if they saw them getting married barely
two months later.

Coupeau replied by shrugging his shoulders. He didn't care about the
neighbors! He never bothered about their affairs. So, there was
Lantier before him, well, so what? What's so bad about that? She
hadn't been constantly bringing men upstairs, as some women did, even
rich ladies! The children would grow up, they'd raise them right.
Never had he known before such a woman, such sound character, so good-
hearted. Anyway, she could have been anything, a streetwalker, ugly,
lazy and good-for-nothing, with a whole gang of dirty kids, and so
what? He wanted her.

"Yes, I want you," he repeated, bringing his hand down on his knee
with a continuos hammering. "You understand, I want you. There's
nothing to be said to that, is there?"

Little by little, Gervaise gave way. Her emotions began to take
control when faced with his encompassing desire. Still, with her hands
in her lap and her face suffused with a soft sweetness, she hesitantly
offered objections. From outside, through the half-open window, a
lovely June night breathed in puffs of sultry air, disturbing the
candle with its long wick gleaming red like a glowing coal. In the
deep silence of the sleeping neighborhood the only sound was the
infantile weeping of a drunkard lying in the middle of the street. Far
away, in the back room of some restaurant, a violin was playing a
dance tune for some late party.

Coupeau was silent. Then, knowing she had no more arguments, he
smiled, took hold of her hands and pulled her toward him. She was in
one of those moments of weakness she so greatly mistrusted, persuaded
at last, too emotionally stirred to refuse anything or to hurt
anyone's feelings. Coupeau didn't realize that she was giving way. He
held her wrists so tightly as to almost crush them. Together they
breathed a long sigh that to both of them meant a partial satisfaction
of their desire.

"You'll say 'yes,' won't you," asked he.

"How you worry me!" she murmured. "You wish it? Well then, 'yes.' Ah!
we're perhaps doing a very foolish thing."

He jumped up, and, seizing her round the waist, kissed her roughly on
the face, at random. Then, as this caress caused a noise, he became
anxious, and went softly and looked at Claude and Etienne.

"Hush, we must be careful," said he in a whisper, "and not wake the
children. Good-bye till to-morrow."

And he went back to his room. Gervaise, all in a tremble, remained
seated on the edge of her bed, without thinking of undressing herself
for nearly an hour. She was touched; she felt that Coupeau was very
honorable; for at one moment she had really thought it was all over,
and that he would forget her. The drunkard below, under the window,
was now hoarsely uttering the plaintive cry of some lost animal. The
violin in the distance had left off its saucy tune and was now silent.

During the following days Coupeau sought to get Gervaise to call some
evening on his sister in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or; but the young
woman, who was very timid, showed a great dread of this visit to the
Lorilleux. She knew that Coupeau had a lingering fear of that
household, even though he certainly wasn't dependent on his sister,
who wasn't even the oldest of the family. Mamma Coupeau would
certainly give her consent at once, as she never refused her only son
anything. The thing was that the Lorilleuxs were supposed to be
earning ten francs a day or more and that gave them a certain
authority. Coupeau would never dare to get married unless his wife was
acceptable to them.

"I have spoken to them of you, they know our plans," explained he to
Gervaise. "Come now! What a child you are! Let's call on them this
evening. I've warned you, haven't I? You'll find my sister rather
stiff. Lorilleux, too, isn't always very amiable. In reality they are
greatly annoyed, because if I marry, I shall no longer take my meals
with them, and it'll be an economy the less. But that doesn't matter,
they won't turn you out. Do this for me, it's absolutely necessary."

These words only frightened Gervaise the more. One Saturday evening,
however, she gave in. Coupeau came for her at half-past eight. She had
dressed herself in a black dress, a crape shawl with yellow palms, and
a white cap trimmed with a little cheap lace. During the six weeks she
had been working, she had saved the seven francs for the shawl, and
the two and a half francs for the cap; the dress was an old one
cleaned and made up afresh.

"They're expecting you," said Coupeau to her, as they went round by
the Rue des Poissonniers. "Oh! they're beginning to get used to the
idea of my being married. They seem nice indeed, to-night. And you
know if you've never seen gold chains made, it'll amuse you to watch
them. They just happen to have a pressing order for Monday."

"They've got gold in their room?" asked Gervaise.

"I should think so; there's some on the walls, on the floor, in fact
everywhere."

They had passed the arched doorway and crossed the courtyard. The
Lorilleuxs lived on the sixth floor, staircase B. Coupeau laughingly
told her to hold the hand-rail tight and not to leave go of it. She
looked up, and blinked her eyes, as she perceived the tall hollow
tower of the staircase, lighted by three gas jets, one on every second
landing; the last one, right up at the top looked like a star
twinkling in a black sky, whilst the other two cast long flashes of
light, of fantastic shapes, among the interminable windings of the
stairs.

"By Jove!" said the zinc-worker as he reached the first floor,
smiling, "there's a strong smell of onion soup. Someone's having
onion soup, I'm sure."

Staircase B, with its gray, dirty steps and hand-rail, its scratched
walls and chipped plaster, was full of strong kitchen odors. Long
corridors, echoing with noise, led away from each landing. Doors,
painted yellow, gaped open, smeared black around the latch from dirty
hands. A sink on each landing gave forth a fetid humidity, adding its
stench to the sharp flavor of the cooking of onions. From the
basement, all the way to the sixth floor, you could hear dishes
clattering, saucepans being rinsed, pots being scraped and scoured.

On the first floor Gervaise saw a half-opened door with the word
"Designer" written on it in large letters. Inside were two men sitting
by a table, the dishes cleared away from its oilcloth cover, arguing
furiously amid a cloud of pipe smoke. The second and third floors were
quieter, and through cracks in the woodwork only such sounds filtered
as the rhythm of a cradle rocking, the stifled crying of a child, a
woman's voice sounding like the dull murmur of running water with no
words distinct. Gervaise read the various signs on the doors giving
the names of the occupants: "Madame Gaudron, wool-carder" and
"Monsieur Madinier, cardboard boxes." There was a fight in progress on
the fourth floor: a stomping of feet that shook the floor, furniture
banged around, a racket of curses and blows; but this did not bother
the neighbors opposite, who were playing cards with their door opened
wide to admit more air.

When Gervaise reached the fifth floor, she had to stop to take a
breath; she was not used to going up so high; that wall for ever
turning, the glimpses she had of the lodgings following each other,
made her head ache. Anyway, there was a family almost blocking the
landing: the father washing the dishes over a small earthenware stove
near the sink and the mother sitting with her back to the stair-rail
and cleaning the baby before putting it to bed.

Coupeau kept urging Gervaise along, and they finally reached the sixth
floor. He encouraged her with a smile; they had arrived! She had been
hearing a voice all the way up from the bottom and she was gazing
upward, wondering where it could be coming from, a voice so clear and
piercing that it had dominated all the other sounds. It came from a
little old woman in an attic room who sang while putting dresses on
cheap dolls. When a tall girl came by with a pail of water and entered
a nearby apartment, Gervaise saw a tumbled bed on which a man was
sprawled, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. As the door closed behind
her, Gervaise saw the hand-written card: "Mademoiselle Clemence,
ironing."

Now that she had finally made it to the top, her legs weary and her
breath short, Gervaise leaned over the railing to look down. Now it
was the gaslight on the first floor which seemed a distant star at the
bottom of a narrow well six stories deep. All the odors and all the
murmurings of the immense variety of life within the tenement came up
to her in one stifling breath that flushed her face as she hazarded a
worried glance down into the gulf below.

"We're not there yet," said Coupeau. "Oh! It's quite a journey!"

He had gone down a long corridor on the left. He turned twice, the
first time also to the left, the second time to the right. The
corridor still continued branching off, narrowing between walls full
of crevices, with plaster peeling off, and lighted at distant
intervals by a slender gas-jet; and the doors all alike, succeeded
each other the same as the doors of a prison or a convent, and nearly
all open, continued to display homes of misery and work, which the hot
June evening filled with a reddish mist. At length they reached a
small passage in complete darkness.

"We're here," resumed the zinc-worker. "Be careful, keep to the wall;
there are three steps."

And Gervaise carefully took another ten steps in the obscurity. She
stumbled and then counted the three steps. But at the end of the
passage Coupeau had opened a door, without knocking. A brilliant light
spread over the tiled floor. They entered.

It was a narrow apartment, and seemed as if it were the continuation
of the corridor. A faded woolen curtain, raised up just then by a
string, divided the place in two. The first part contained a bedstead
pushed beneath an angle of the attic ceiling, a cast-iron stove still
warm from the cooking of the dinner, two chairs, a table and a
wardrobe, the cornice of which had had to be sawn off to make it fit
in between the door and the bedstead. The second part was fitted up as
a work-shop; at the end, a narrow forge with its bellows; to the
right, a vise fixed to the wall beneath some shelves on which pieces
of old iron lay scattered; to the left near the window, a small
workman's bench, encumbered with greasy and very dirty pliers, shears
and microscopical saws, all very dirty and grimy.

"It's us!" cried Coupeau advancing as far as the woolen curtain.

But no one answered at first. Gervaise, deeply affected, moved
especially by the thought that she was about to enter a place full of
gold, stood behind the zinc-worker, stammering and venturing upon nods
of her head by way of bowing. The brilliant light, a lamp burning on
the bench, a brazier full of coals flaring in the forge, increased her
confusion still more. She ended however, by distinguishing Madame
Lorilleux--little, red-haired and tolerably strong, pulling with all
the strength of her short arms, and with the assistance of a big pair
of pincers, a thread of black metal which she passed through the holes
of a draw-plate fixed to the vise. Seated in front of the bench,
Lorilleux, quite as small of stature, but more slender in the
shoulders, worked with the tips of his pliers, with the vivacity of a
monkey, at a labor so minute, that it was impossible to follow it
between his scraggy fingers. It was the husband who first raised his
head--a head with scanty locks, the face of the yellow tinge of old
wax, long, and with an ailing expression.

"Ah! it's you; well, well!" murmured he. "We're in a hurry you know.
Don't come into the work-room, you'd be in our way. Stay in the
bedroom."

And he resumed his minute task, his face again in the reflection of a
glass globe full of green-colored water, through which the lamp shed a
circle of bright light over his work.

"Take the chairs!" called out Madame Lorilleux in her turn. "It's that
lady, isn't it? Very well, very well!"

She had rolled the wire and she carried it to the forge, and then,
reviving the fire of the brazier with a large wooden fan, she
proceeded to temper the wire before passing it through the last holes
of the draw-plate.

Coupeau moved the chairs forward and seated Gervaise by the curtain.
The room was so narrow that he could not sit beside her, so he sat
behind her, leaning over her shoulder to explain the work in progress.
Gervaise was intimidated by this strange reception and felt uneasy.
She had a buzzing in her ears and couldn't hear clearly. She thought
the wife looked older than her thirty years and not very neat with her
hair in a pigtail dangling down the back of her loosely worn wrapper.
The husband, who was only a year older, appeared already an old man
with mean, thin lips, as he sat there working in his shirt sleeves
with his bare feet thrust into down at the heel slippers. Gervaise was
dismayed by the smallness of the shop, the grimy walls, the rustiness
of the tools, and the black soot spread all over what looked like the
odds and ends of a scrap-iron peddler's wares.

"And the gold?" asked Gervaise in a low voice.

Her anxious glances searched the corners and sought amongst all that
filth for the resplendence she had dreamt of. But Coupeau burst out
laughing.

"Gold?" said he; "why there's some; there's some more, and there's
some at your feet!"

He pointed successively to the fine wire at which his sister was
working, and to another roll of wire, similar to the ordinary iron
wire, hanging against the wall close to the vise; then going down on
all fours, he picked up, beneath the wooden screen which covered the
tiled floor of the work-room, a piece of waste, a tiny fragment
resembling the point of a rusty needle. But Gervaise protested; that
couldn't be gold, that blackish piece of metal as ugly as iron! He had
to bite into the piece and show her the gleaming notch made by his
teeth. Then he continued his explanations: the employers provided the
gold wire, already alloyed; the craftsmen first pulled it through the
draw-plate to obtain the correct size, being careful to anneal it five
or six times to keep it from breaking. It required a steady, strong
hand, and plenty of practice. His sister would not let her husband
touch the wire-drawing since he was subject to coughing spells. She
had strong arms for it; he had seen her draw gold to the fineness of a
hair.

Lorilleux, seized with a fit of coughing, almost doubled up on his
stool. In the midst of the paroxysm, he spoke, and said in a choking
voice, still without looking at Gervaise, as though he was merely
mentioning the thing to himself:

"I'm making the herring-bone chain."

Coupeau urged Gervaise to get up. She might draw nearer and see. The
chainmaker consented with a grunt. He wound the wire prepared by his
wife round a mandrel, a very thin steel rod. Then he sawed gently,
cutting the wire the whole length of the mandrel, each turn forming a
link, which he soldered. The links were laid on a large piece of
charcoal. He wetted them with a drop of borax, taken from the bottom
of a broken glass beside him; and he made them red-hot at the lamp
beneath the horizontal flame produced by the blow-pipe. Then, when he
had soldered about a hundred links he returned once more to his minute
work, propping his hands against the edge of the /cheville/, a small
piece of board which the friction of his hands had polished. He bent
each link almost double with the pliers, squeezed one end close,
inserted it in the last link already in place and then, with the aid
of a point opened out again the end he had squeezed; and he did this
with a continuous regularity, the links joining each other so rapidly
that the chain gradually grew beneath Gervaise's gaze, without her
being able to follow, or well understand how it was done.

"That's the herring-bone chain," said Coupeau. "There's also the long
link, the cable, the plain ring, and the spiral. But that's the
herring-bone. Lorilleux only makes the herring-bone chain."

The latter chuckled with satisfaction. He exclaimed, as he continued
squeezing the links, invisible between his black finger-nails.

"Listen to me, Young Cassis! I was making a calculation this morning.
I commenced work when I was twelve years old, you know. Well! Can you
guess how long a herring-bone chain I must have made up till to-day?"

He raised his pale face, and blinked his red eye-lids.

"Twenty-six thousand feet, do you hear? Two leagues! That's something!
A herring-bone chain two leagues long! It's enough to twist round the
necks of all the women of the neighborhood. And you know, it's still
increasing. I hope to make it long enough to reach from Paris to
Versailles."

Gervaise had returned to her seat, disenchanted and thinking
everything very ugly. She smiled to be polite to the Lorilleuxs. The
complete silence about her marriage bothered her. It was the sole
reason for her having come. The Lorilleuxs were treating her as some
stranger brought in by Coupeau. When a conversation finally did get
started, it concerned the building's tenants. Madame Lorilleux asked
her husband if he had heard the people on the fourth floor having a
fight. They fought every day. The husband usually came home drunk and
the wife had her faults too, yelling in the filthiest language. Then
they spoke of the designer on the first floor, an uppity show-off with
a mound of debts, always smoking, always arguing loudly with his
friends. Monsieur Madinier's cardboard business was barely surviving.
He had let two girl workers go yesterday. The business ate up all his
money, leaving his children to run around in rags. And that Madame
Gaudron was pregnant again; this was almost indecent at her age. The
landlord was going to evict the Coquets on the fifth floor. They owed
nine months' rent, and besides, they insisted on lighting their stove
out on the landing. Last Saturday the old lady on the sixth floor,
Mademoiselle Remanjou, had arrived just in time to save the Linguerlot
child from being badly burned. Mademoiselle Clemence, one who took in
ironing, well, she lived life as she pleased. She was so kind to
animals though and had such a good heart that you couldn't say
anything against her. It was a pity, a fine girl like her, the company
she kept. She'd be walking the streets before long.

"Look, here's one," said Lorilleux to his wife, giving her the piece
of chain he had been working on since his lunch. "You can trim it."
And he added, with the persistence of a man who does not easily
relinquish a joke: "Another four feet and a half. That brings me
nearer to Versailles."

Madame Lorilleux, after tempering it again, trimmed it by passing it
through the regulating draw-plate. Then she put it in a little copper
saucepan with a long handle, full of lye-water, and placed it over the
fire of the forge. Gervaise, again pushed forward by Coupeau, had to
follow this last operation. When the chain was thoroughly cleansed, it
appeared a dull red color. It was finished, and ready to be delivered.

"They're always delivered like that, in their rough state," the zinc-
worker explained. "The polishers rub them afterwards with cloths."

Gervaise felt her courage failing her. The heat, more and more
intense, was suffocating her. They kept the door shut, because
Lorilleux caught cold from the least draught. Then as they still did
not speak of the marriage, she wanted to go away and gently pulled
Coupeau's jacket. He understood. Besides, he also was beginning to
feel ill at ease and vexed at their affectation of silence.

"Well, we're off," said he. "We mustn't keep you from your work."

He moved about for a moment, waiting, hoping for a word or some
allusion or other. At length he decided to broach the subject himself.

"I say, Lorilleux, we're counting on you to be my wife's witness."

The chainmaker pretended, with a chuckle, to be greatly surprised;
whilst his wife, leaving her draw-plates, placed herself in the middle
of the work-room.

"So it's serious then?" murmured he. "That confounded Young Cassis,
one never knows whether he is joking or not."

"Ah! yes, madame's the person involved," said the wife in her turn, as
she stared rudely at Gervaise. "/Mon Dieu!/ We've no advice to give
you, we haven't. It's a funny idea to go and get married, all the
same. Anyhow, it's your own wish. When it doesn't succeed, one's only
got oneself to blame, that's all. And it doesn't often succeed, not
often, not often."

She uttered these last words slower and slower, and shaking her head,
she looked from the young woman's face to her hands, and then to her
feet as though she had wished to undress her and see the very pores of
her skin. She must have found her better than she expected.

"My brother is perfectly free," she continued more stiffly. "No doubt
the family might have wished--one always makes projects. But things
take such funny turns. For myself, I don't want to have any
unpleasantness. Had he brought us the lowest of the low, I should
merely have said: 'Marry her and go to blazes!' He was not badly off
though, here with us. He's fat enough; one can very well see he didn't
fast much; and he always found his soup hot right on time. I say,
Lorilleux, don't you think madame's like Therese--you know who I mean,
that woman who used to live opposite, and who died of consumption?"

"Yes, there's a certain resemblance," replied the chainmaker.

"And you've got two children, madame? Now, I must admit I said to my
brother: 'I can't understand how you can want to marry a woman who's
got two children.' You mustn't be offended if I consult his interests;
its only natural. You don't look strong either. Don't you think,
Lorilleux, that madame doesn't look very strong?"

"No, no, she's not strong."

They did not mention her leg; but Gervaise understood by their side
glances, and the curling of their lips, that they were alluding to it.
She stood before them, wrapped in her thin shawl with the yellow
palms, replying in monosyllables, as though in the presence of her
judges. Coupeau, seeing she was suffering, ended by exclaiming:

"All that's nothing to do with it. What you are talking about isn't
important. The wedding will take place on Saturday, July 29. I
calculated by the almanac. Is it settled? Does it suit you?"

"Oh, it's all the same to us," said his sister. "There was no
necessity to consult us. I shan't prevent Lorilleux being witness. I
only want peace and quiet."

Gervaise, hanging her head, not knowing what to do with herself had
put the toe of her boot through one of the openings in the wooden
screen which covered the tiled floor of the work-room; then afraid of
having disturbed something when she had withdrawn it, she stooped down
and felt about with her hand. Lorilleux hastily brought the lamp, and
he examined her fingers suspiciously.

"You must be careful," said he, "the tiny bits of gold stick to the
shoes, and get carried away without one knowing it."

It was all to do with business. The employers didn't allow a single
speck for waste. He showed her the rabbit's foot he used to brush off
any flecks of gold left on the /cheville/ and the leather he kept on
his lap to catch any gold that fell. Twice weekly the shop was swept
out carefully, the sweepings collected and burned and the ashes
sifted. This recovered up to twenty-five or thirty francs' worth of
gold a month.

Madame Lorilleux could not take her eyes from Gervaise's shoes.

"There's no reason to get angry," murmured she with an amiable smile.
"But, perhaps madame would not mind looking at the soles of her
shoes."

And Gervaise, turning very red, sat down again, and holding up her
feet showed that there was nothing clinging to them. Coupeau had
opened the door, exclaiming: "Good-night!" in an abrupt tone of voice.
He called to her from the corridor. Then she in her turn went off,
after stammering a few polite words: she hoped to see them again, and
that they would all agree well together. Both of the Lorilleux had
already gone back to their work at the far end of their dark hole of a
work-room. Madame Lorilleux, her skin reflecting the red glow from the
bed of coals, was drawing on another wire. Each effort swelling her
neck and making the strained muscles stand out like taut cords. Her
husband, hunched over beneath the greenish gleam of the globe was
starting another length of chain, twisting each link with his pliers,
pressing it on one side, inserting it into the next link above,
opening it again with the pointed tool, continuously, mechanically,
not wasting a motion, even to wipe the sweat from his face.

When Gervaise emerged from the corridor on to the landing, she could
not help saying, with tears in her eyes:

"That doesn't promise much happiness."

Coupeau shook his head furiously. He would get even with Lorilleux for
that evening. Had anyone ever seen such a miserly fellow? To think
that they were going to walk off with two or three grains of his gold
dust! All the fuss they made was from pure avarice. His sister thought
perhaps that he would never marry, so as to enable her to economize
four sous on her dinner every day. However, it would take place all
the same on July 29. He did not care a hang for them!

Nevertheless, Gervaise still felt depressed. Tormented by a foolish
fearfulness, she peered anxiously into every dark shadow along the
stair-rail as she descended. It was dark and deserted at this hour,
lit only by a single gas jet on the second floor. In the shadowy
depths of the dark pit, it gave a spot of brightness, even with its
flamed turned so low. It was now silent behind the closed doors; the
weary laborers had gone to sleep after eating. However, there was a
soft laugh from Mademoiselle Clemence's room and a ray of light shone
through the keyhole of Mademoiselle Remanjou's door. She was still
busy cutting out dresses for the dolls. Downstairs at Madame
Gaudron's, a child was crying. The sinks on the landings smelled more
offensive than ever in the midst of the darkness and stillness.

In the courtyard, Gervaise turned back for a last look at the tenement
as Coupeau called out to the concierge. The building seemed to have
grown larger under the moonless sky. The drip-drip of water from the
faucet sounded loud in the quiet. Gervaise felt that the building was
threatening to suffocate her and a chill went through her body. It was
a childish fear and she smiled at it a moment later.

"Watch your step," warned Coupeau.

To get to the entrance, Gervaise had to jump over a wide puddle that
had drained from the dye shop. The puddle was blue now, the deep blue
of a summer sky. The reflections from the night light of the concierge
sparkled in it like stars.



                             CHAPTER III.

Gervaise did not want to have a wedding-party! What was the use of
spending money? Besides, she still felt somewhat ashamed; it seemed to
her quite unnecessary to parade the marriage before the whole
neighborhood. But Coupeau cried out at that. One could not be married
without having a feed. He did not care a button for the people of the
neighborhood! Nothing elaborate, just a short walk and a rabbit ragout
in the first eating-house they fancied. No music with dessert. Just a
glass or two and then back home.

The zinc-worker, chaffing and joking, at length got the young woman to
consent by promising her that there should be no larks. He would keep
his eye on the glasses, to prevent sunstrokes. Then he organized a
sort of picnic at five francs a head, at the "Silver Windmill," kept
by Auguste, on the Boulevard de la Chapelle. It was a small cafe with
moderate charges and had a dancing place in the rear, beneath the
three acacias in the courtyard. They would be very comfortable on the
first floor. During the next ten days, he got hold of guests in the
house where his sister lived in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or--Monsieur
Madinier, Mademoiselle Remanjou, Madame Gaudron and her husband. He
even ended by getting Gervaise to consent to the presence of two of
his comrades--Bibi-the-Smoker and My-Boots. No doubt My-Boots was a
boozer; but then he had such a fantastic appetite that he was always
asked to join those sort of gatherings, just for the sight of the
caterer's mug when he beheld that bottomless pit swallowing his twelve
pounds of bread. The young woman on her side, promised to bring her
employer Madame Fauconnier and the Boches, some very agreeable people.
On counting, they found there would be fifteen to sit down to table,
which was quite enough. When there are too many, they always wind up
by quarrelling.

Coupeau however, had no money. Without wishing to show off, he
intended to behave handsomely. He borrowed fifty francs of his
employer. Out of that, he first of all purchased the wedding-ring--a
twelve franc gold wedding-ring, which Lorilleux procured for him at
the wholesale price of nine francs. He then bought himself a frock
coat, a pair of trousers and a waistcoat at a tailor's in the Rue
Myrrha, to whom he gave merely twenty-five francs on account; his
patent leather shoes and his hat were still good enough. When he had
put by the ten francs for his and Gervaise's share of the feast--the
two children not being charged for--he had exactly six francs left--
the price of a low mass at the altar of the poor. He had no liking for
those black crows, the priests. It would gripe him to pay his last six
francs to keep their whistles wet; however, a marriage without a mass
wasn't a real marriage at all.

Going to the church himself, he bargained for a whole hour with a
little old priest in a dirty cassock who was as sharp at dealing as a
push-cart peddler. Coupeau felt like boxing his ears. For a joke, he
asked the priest if he didn't have a second-hand mass that would do
for a modest young couple. The priest, mumbling that God would take
small pleasure in blessing their union, finally let his have his mass
for five francs. Well after all, that meant twenty sous saved.

Gervaise also wanted to look decent. As soon as the marriage was
settled, she made her arrangements, worked extra time in the evenings,
and managed to put thirty francs on one side. She had a great longing
for a little silk mantle marked thirteen francs in the Rue du Faubourg
Poissonniere. She treated herself to it, and then bought for ten
francs of the husband of a washerwoman who had died in Madame
Fauconnier's house a blue woolen dress, which she altered to fit
herself. With the seven francs remaining she procured a pair of cotton
gloves, a rose for her cap, and some shoes for Claude, her eldest boy.
Fortunately the youngsters' blouses were passable. She spent four
nights cleaning everything, and mending the smallest holes in her
stockings and chemise.

On Friday night, the eve of the great day, Gervaise and Coupeau had
still a good deal of running about to do up till eleven o'clock, after
returning home from work. Then before separating for the night they
spent an hour together in the young woman's room, happy at being about
to be released from their awkward position. In spite of the fact that
they had originally resolved not to put themselves out to impress the
neighbors, they had ended by taking it seriously and working
themselves till they were weary. By the time they said "Good-night,"
they were almost asleep on their feet. They breathed a great sigh of
relief now that everything was ready.

Coupeau's witnesses were to be Monsieur Madinier and Bibi-the-Smoker.
They were counting on Lorilleux and Boche for Gervaise's witnesses.
They were to go quietly to the mayor's office and the church, just the
six of them, without a whole procession of people trailing behind
them. The bridegroom's two sisters had even declared that they would
stay home, their presence not being necessary. Coupeau's mother,
however, had sobbed and wailed, threatening to go ahead of them and
hide herself in some corner of the church, until they had promised to
take her along. The meeting of the guests was set for one o'clock at
the Silver Windmill. From there, they would go to Saint-Denis, going
out by railroad and returning on foot along the highway in order to
work up an appetite. The party promised to be quite all right.

Saturday morning, while getting dressed, Coupeau felt a qualm of
uneasiness in view of the single franc in his pocket. He began to
think that it was a matter of ordinary courtesy to offer a glass of
wine and a slice of ham to the witnesses while awaiting dinner. Also,
there might be unforeseen expenses. So, after taking Claude and
Etienne to stay with Madame Boche, who was to bring them to the dinner
later that afternoon, he hurried over to the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or to
borrow ten francs from Lorilleux. Having to do that griped him
immensely as he could guess the attitude his brother-in-law would
take. The latter did grumble a bit, but ended by lending him two five-
franc pieces. However, Coupeau overheard his sister muttering under
her breath, "This is a fine beginning."

The ceremony at the mayor's was to take place at half-past ten. It was
beautiful weather--a magnificent sun seemed to roast the streets. So
as not to be stared at the bride and bridegroom, the old mother, and
the four witnesses separated into two bands. Gervaise walked in front
with Lorilleux, who gave her his arm; whilst Monsieur Madinier
followed with mother Coupeau. Then, twenty steps behind on the
opposite side of the way, came Coupeau, Boche, and Bibi-the-Smoker.
These three were in black frock coats, walking erect and swinging
their arms. Boche's trousers were bright yellow. Bibi-the-Smoker
didn't have a waistcoat so he was buttoned up to the neck with only a
bit of his cravat showing. The only one in a full dress suit was
Monsieur Madinier and passers-by gazed at this well-dressed gentleman
escorting the huge bulk of mother Coupeau in her green shawl and black
bonnet with red ribbons.

Gervaise looked very gay and sweet in her dress of vivid blue and with
her new silk mantle fitted tightly to her shoulders. She listened
politely to the sneering remarks of Lorilleux, who seemed buried in
the depths of the immense overcoat he was wearing. From time to time,
Gervaise would turn her head a little to smile brightly at Coupeau,
who was rather uncomfortable under the hot sun in his new clothes.

Though they walked very slowly, they arrived at the mayor's quite half
an hour too soon. And as the mayor was late, their turn was not
reached till close upon eleven o'clock. They sat down on some chairs
and waited in a corner of the apartment, looking by turns at the high
ceiling and bare walls, talking low, and over-politely pushing back
their chairs each time that one of the attendants passed. Yet among
themselves they called the mayor a sluggard, saying he must be
visiting his blonde to get a massage for his gout, or that maybe he'd
swallowed his official sash.

However, when the mayor did put in his appearance, they rose
respectfully in his honor. They were asked to sit down again and they
had to wait through three other marriages. The hall was crowded with
the three bourgeois wedding parties: brides all in white, little girls
with carefully curled hair, bridesmaids wearing wide sashes, an
endless procession of ladies and gentlemen dressed in their best and
looking very stylish.

When at length they were called, they almost missed being married
altogether. Bibi-the-Smoker having disappeared. Boche discovered him
outside smoking his pipe. Well! They were a nice lot inside there to
humbug people about like that, just because one hadn't yellow kid
gloves to shove under their noses! And the various formalities--the
reading of the Code, the different questions to be put, the signing of
all the documents--were all got through so rapidly that they looked at
each other with an idea that they had been robbed of a good half of
the ceremony. Gervaise, dizzy, her heart full, pressed her
handkerchief to her lips. Mother Coupeau wept bitterly. All had signed
the register, writing their names in big struggling letters with the
exception of the bridegroom, who not being able to write, had put his
cross. They each gave four sous for the poor. When an attendant handed
Coupeau the marriage certificate, the latter, prompted by Gervaise who
nudged his elbow, handed him another five sous.

It was a fair walk from the mayor's office in the town hall to the
church. The men stopped along the way to have a beer. Mother Coupeau
and Gervaise took cassis with water. Then they had to trudge along the
long street where the sun glared straight down without the relief of
shade.

When they arrived at the church they were hurried along and asked if
they came so late in order to make a mockery of religion. A priest
came forward, his face pale and resentful from having to delay his
lunch. An altar boy in a soiled surplice ran before him.

The mass went very fast, with the priest turning, bowing his head,
spreading out his arms, making all the ritual gestures in haste while
casting sidelong glances at the group. Gervaise and Coupeau, before
the altar, were embarrassed, not knowing when they should kneel or
rise or seat themselves, expecting some indication from the attendant.
The witnesses, not knowing what was proper, remained standing during
the ceremony. Mother Coupeau was weeping again and shedding her tears
into the missal she had borrowed from a neighbor.

Meanwhile, the noon chimes had sounded and the church began to fill
with noise from the shuffling feet of sacristans and the clatter of
chairs being put back in place. The high altar was apparently being
prepared for some special ceremony.

Thus, in the depths of this obscure chapel, amid the floating dust,
the surly priest placed his withered hands on the bared heads of
Gervaise and Coupeau, blessing their union amid a hubbub like that of
moving day. The wedding party signed another registry, this time in
the sacristy, and then found themselves out in the bright sunlight
before the church doors where they stood for a moment, breathless and
confused from having been carried along at such a break-neck speed.

"Voila!" said Coupeau with an embarrassed laugh. "Well, it sure didn't
take long. They shove it at you so; it's like being at the painless
dentist's who doesn't give you time to cry out. Here you get a
painless wedding!"

"Yes, it's a quick job," Lorilleux smirked. "In five minutes you're
tied together for the rest of your life. You poor Young Cassis, you've
had it."

The four witnesses whacked Coupeau on the shoulders as he arched his
back against the friendly blows. Meanwhile Gervaise was hugging and
kissing mother Coupeau, her eyes moist, a smile lighting her face. She
replied reassuringly to the old woman's sobbing: "Don't worry, I'll do
my best. I want so much to have a happy life. If it doesn't work out
it won't be my fault. Anyhow, it's done now. It's up to us to get
along together and do the best we can for each other."

After that they went straight to the Silver Windmill. Coupeau had
taken his wife's arm. They walked quickly, laughing as though carried
away, quite two hundred steps ahead of the others, without noticing
the houses or the passers-by, or the vehicles. The deafening noises of
the faubourg sounded like bells in their ears. When they reached the
wineshop, Coupeau at once ordered two bottles of wine, some bread and
some slices of ham, to be served in the little glazed closet on the
ground floor, without plates or table cloth, simply to have a snack.
Then, noticing that Boche and Bibi-the-Smoker seemed to be very
hungry, he had a third bottle brought, as well as a slab of brie
cheese. Mother Coupeau was not hungry, being too choked up to be able
to eat. Gervaise found herself very thirsty, and drank several large
glasses of water with a small amount of wine added.

"I'll settle for this," said Coupeau, going at once to the bar, where
he paid four francs and five sous.

It was now one o'clock and the other guests began to arrive. Madame
Fauconnier, a fat woman, still good looking, first put in an
appearance; she wore a chintz dress with a flowery pattern, a pink tie
and a cap over-trimmed with flowers. Next came Mademoiselle Remanjou,
looking very thin in the eternal black dress which she seemed to keep
on even when she went to bed; and the two Gaudrons--the husband, like
some heavy animal and almost bursting his brown jacket at the
slightest movement, the wife, an enormous woman, whose figure
indicated evident signs of an approaching maternity and whose stiff
violet colored skirt still more increased her rotundity. Coupeau
explained that they were not to wait for My-Boots; his comrade would
join the party on the Route de Saint-Denis.

"Well!" exclaimed Madame Lerat as she entered, "it'll pour in torrents
soon! That'll be pleasant!"

And she called everyone to the door of the wineshop to see the clouds
as black as ink which were rising rapidly to the south of Paris.
Madame Lerat, eldest of the Coupeaus, was a tall, gaunt woman who
talked through her nose. She was unattractively dressed in a puce-
colored robe that hung loosely on her and had such long dangling
fringes that they made her look like a skinny poodle coming out of the
water. She brandished her umbrella like a club. After greeting
Gervaise, she said, "You've no idea. The heat in the street is like a
slap on the face. You'd think someone was throwing fire at you."

Everyone agreed that they knew the storm was coming. It was in the
air. Monsieur Madinier said that he had seen it as they were coming
out of the church. Lorilleux mentioned that his corns were aching and
he hadn't been able to sleep since three in the morning. A storm was
due. It had been much too hot for three days in a row.

"Well, maybe it will just be a little mist," Coupeau said several
times, standing at the door and anxiously studying the sky. "Now we
have to wait only for my sister. We'll start as soon as she arrives."

Madame Lorilleux was late. Madame Lerat had stopped by so they could
come together, but found her only beginning to get dressed. The two
sisters had argued. The widow whispered in her brother's ear, "I left
her flat! She's in a dreadful mood. You'll see."

And the wedding party had to wait another quarter of an hour, walking
about the wineshop, elbowed and jostled in the midst of the men who
entered to drink a glass of wine at the bar. Now and again Boche, or
Madame Fauconnier, or Bibi-the-Smoker left the others and went to the
edge of the pavement, looking up at the sky. The storm was not passing
over at all; a darkness was coming on and puffs of wind, sweeping
along the ground, raised little clouds of white dust. At the first
clap of thunder, Mademoiselle Remanjou made the sign of the cross. All
the glances were anxiously directed to the clock over the looking-
glass; it was twenty minutes to two.

"Here it goes!" cried Coupeau. "It's the angels who're weeping."

A gush of rain swept the pavement, along which some women flew,
holding down their skirts with both hands. And it was in the midst of
this first shower that Madame Lorilleux at length arrived, furious and
out of breath, and struggling on the threshold with her umbrella that
would not close.

"Did any one ever see such a thing?" she exclaimed. "It caught me just
at the door. I felt inclined to go upstairs again and take my things
off. I should have been wise had I done so. Ah! it's a pretty wedding!
I said how it would be. I wanted to put it off till next Saturday; and
it rains because they wouldn't listen to me! So much the better, so
much the better! I wish the sky would burst!"

Coupeau tried to pacify her without success. He wouldn't have to pay
for her dress if it was spoilt! She had on a black silk dress in which
she was nearly choking, the bodice, too tight fitting, was almost
bursting the button-holes, and was cutting her across the shoulders;
while the skirt only allowed her to take very short steps in walking.
However, the ladies present were all staring at her, quite overcome by
her costume.

She appeared not to notice Gervaise, who was sitting beside mother
Coupeau. She asked her husband for his handkerchief. Then she went
into a corner and very carefully wiped off the raindrops that had
fallen on her silk dress.

The shower had abruptly ceased. The darkness increased, it was almost
like night--a livid night rent at times by large flashes of lightning.
Bibi-the-Smoker said laughingly that it would certainly rain priests.
Then the storm burst forth with extreme violence. For half an hour the
rain came down in bucketsful, and the thunder rumbled unceasingly. The
men standing up before the door contemplated the grey veil of the
downpour, the swollen gutters, the splashes of water caused by the
rain beating into the puddles. The women, feeling frightened, had sat
down again, holding their hands before their eyes. They no longer
conversed, they were too upset. A jest Boche made about the thunder,
saying that St. Peter was sneezing up there, failed to raise a smile.
But, when the thunder-claps became less frequent and gradually died
away in the distance, the wedding guests began to get impatient,
enraged against the storm, cursing and shaking their fists at the
clouds. A fine and interminable rain now poured down from the sky
which had become an ashy grey.

"It's past two o'clock," cried Madame Lorilleux. "We can't stop here
for ever."

Mademoiselle Remanjou, having suggested going into the country all the
same, even though they went no farther than the moat of the
fortifications, the others scouted the idea: the roads would be in a
nice state, one would not even be able to sit down on the grass;
besides, it did not seem to be all over yet, there might perhaps be
another downpour. Coupeau, who had been watching a workman, completely
soaked, yet quietly walking along in the rain, murmured:

"If that animal My-Boots is waiting for us on the Route de Saint-
Denis, he won't catch a sunstroke."

That made some of them laugh; but the general ill-humor increased. It
was becoming ludicrous. They must decide on something unless they
planned to sit there, staring at each other, until time for dinner. So
for the next quarter of an hour, while the persistent rain continued,
they tried to think of what to do. Bibi-the-Smoker suggested that they
play cards. Boche slyly suggesting a most amusing game, the game of
true confessions. Madame Gaudron thought of going to eat onion tarts
on the Chaussee Clignancourt. Madame Lerat wanted to hear some
stories. Gaudron said he wasn't a bit put out and thought they were
quite well off where they were, out of the downpour. He suggested
sitting down to dinner immediately.

There was a discussion after each proposal. Some said that this would
put everybody to sleep or that that would make people think they were
stupid. Lorilleux had to get his word in. He finally suggested a walk
along the outer Boulevards to Pere Lachaise cemetery. They could visit
the tomb of Heloise and Abelard. Madame Lorilleux exploded, no longer
able to control herself. She was leaving, she was. Were they trying to
make fun of her? She got all dressed up and came out in the rain. And
for what? To be wasting time in a wineshop. No, she had had enough of
this wedding party. She'd rather be in her own home. Coupeau and
Lorilleux had to get between her and the door to keep her from
leaving. She kept telling them, "Get out of my way! I am leaving, I
tell you!"

Lorilleux finally succeeded in calming her down. Coupeau went over to
Gervaise, who had been sitting quietly in a corner with mother Coupeau
and Madame Fauconnier.

"You haven't suggested anything," he said to her.

"Oh! Whatever they want," she replied, laughing. "I don't mind. We can
go out or stay here."

She seemed aglow with contentment. She had spoken to each guest as
they arrived. She spoke sensibly, in her soft voice, not getting into
any disagreements. During the downpour, she had sat with her eyes wide
open, watching the lightning as though she could see the future in the
sudden flashes.

Monsieur Madinier had up to this time not proposed anything. He was
leaning against the bar, with the tails of his dress coat thrust
apart, while he fully maintained the important air of an employer. He
kept on expectorating, and rolled his big eyes about.

"/Mon Dieu/!" said he, "we might go to the Museum."

And he stroked his chin, as he blinkingly consulted the other members
of the party.

"There are antiquities, pictures, paintings, a whole heap of things.
It is very instructive. Perhaps you have never been there. Oh! it is
quite worth seeing at least once in a while."

They looked at each other interrogatively. No, Gervaise had never
been; Madame Fauconnier neither, nor Boche, nor the others. Coupeau
thought he had been one Sunday, but he was not sure. They hesitated,
however, when Madame Lorilleux, greatly impressed by Monsieur
Madinier's importance, thought the suggestion a very worthy and
respectable one. As they were wasting the day, and were all dressed
up, they might as well go somewhere for their own instruction.
Everyone approved. Then, as it still rained a little, they borrowed
some umbrellas from the proprietor of the wineshop, old blue, green,
and brown umbrellas, forgotten by different customers, and started off
to the Museum.

The wedding party turned to the right, and descended into Paris along
the Faubourg Saint-Denis. Coupeau and Gervaise again took the lead,
almost running and keeping a good distance in front of the others.
Monsieur Madinier now gave his arm to Madame Lorilleux, mother Coupeau
having remained behind in the wineshop on account of her old legs.
Then came Lorilleux and Madame Lerat, Boche and Madame Fauconnier,
Bibi-the-Smoker and Mademoiselle Remanjou, and finally the two
Gaudrons. They were twelve and made a pretty long procession on the
pavement.

"I swear to you, we had nothing to do with it," Madame Lorilleux
explained to Monsieur Madinier. "We don't even know how they met, or,
we know only too well, but that's not for us to discuss. My husband
even had to buy the wedding ring. We were scarcely out of bed this
morning when he had to lend them ten francs. And, not a member of her
family at her wedding, what kind of bride is that? She says she has a
sister in Paris who works for a pork butcher. Why didn't she invite
her?" She stopped to point at Gervaise, who was limping awkwardly
because of the slope of the pavement. "Just look at her. Clump-clump."

"Clump-clump" ran through the wedding procession. Lorilleux laughed
under his breath, and said they ought to call her that, but Madame
Fauconnier stood up for Gervaise. They shouldn't make fun of her; she
was neat as a pin and did a good job when there was washing to be
done.

When the wedding procession came out of the Faubourg Saint-Denis, they
had to cross the boulevard. The street had been transformed into a
morass of sticky mud by the storm. It had started to pour again and
they had opened the assorted umbrellas. The women picked their way
carefully through the mud, holding their skirts high as the men held
the sorry-looking umbrellas over their heads. The procession stretched
out the width of the street.

"It's a masquerade!" yelled two street urchins.

People turned to stare. These couples parading across the boulevard
added a splash of vivid color against the damp background. It was a
parade of a strange medley of styles showing fancy used clothing such
as constitute the luxury of the poor. The gentlemen's hats caused the
most merriment, old hats preserved for years in dark and dusty
cupboards, in a variety of comical forms: tall ones, flattened ones,
sharply peaked ones, hats with extraordinary brims, curled back or
flat, too narrow or too wide. Then at the very end, Madame Gaudron
came along with her bright dress over her bulging belly and caused the
smiles of the audience to grow even wider. The procession made no
effort to hasten its progress. They were, in fact, rather pleased to
attract so much attention and admiration.

"Look! Here comes the bride!" one of the urchins shouted, pointing to
Madame Gaudron. "Oh! Isn't it too bad! She must have swallowed
something!"

The entire wedding procession burst into laughter. Bibi-the-Smoker
turned around and laughed. Madame Gaudron laughed the most of all. She
wasn't ashamed as she thought more than one of the women watching had
looked at her with envy.

They turned into the Rue de Clery. Then they took the Rue du Mail. On
reaching the Place des Victoires, there was a halt. The bride's left
shoe lace had come undone, and as she tied it up again at the foot of
the statue of Louis XIV., the couples pressed behind her waiting, and
joking about the bit of calf of her leg that she displayed. At length,
after passing down the Rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs, they reached the
Louvre.

Monsieur Madinier politely asked to be their cicerone. It was a big
place, and they might lose themselves; besides, he knew the best
parts, because he had often come there with an artist, a very
intelligent fellow from whom a large dealer bought designs to put on
his cardboard boxes. Down below, when the wedding party entered the
Assyrian Museum, a slight shiver passed through it. The deuce! It was
not at all warm there; the hall would have made a capital cellar. And
the couples slowly advanced, their chins raised, their eyes blinking,
between the gigantic stone figures, the black marble gods, dumb in
their hieratic rigidity, and the monstrous beasts, half cats and half
women, with death-like faces, attenuated noses, and swollen lips. They
thought all these things very ugly. The stone carvings of the present
day were a great deal better. An inscription in Phoenician characters
amazed them. No one could possibly have ever read that scrawl. But
Monsieur Madinier, already up on the first landing with Madame
Lorilleux, called to them, shouting beneath the vaulted ceiling:

"Come along! They're nothing, all those things! The things to see are
on the first floor!"

The severe barrenness of the staircase made them very grave. An
attendant, superbly attired in a red waistcoat and a coat trimmed with
gold lace, who seemed to be awaiting them on the landing, increased
their emotion. It was with great respect, and treading as softly as
possible, that they entered the French Gallery.

Then, without stopping, their eyes occupied with the gilding of the
frames, they followed the string of little rooms, glancing at the
passing pictures too numerous to be seen properly. It would have
required an hour before each, if they had wanted to understand it.
What a number of pictures! There was no end to them. They must be
worth a mint of money. Right at the end, Monsieur Madinier suddenly
ordered a halt opposite the "Raft of the Medusa" and he explained the
subject to them. All deeply impressed and motionless, they uttered not
a word. When they started off again, Boche expressed the general
feeling, saying it was marvellous.

In the Apollo Gallery, the inlaid flooring especially astonished the
party--a shining floor, as clear as a mirror, and which reflected the
legs of the seats. Mademoiselle Remanjou kept her eyes closed, because
she could not help thinking that she was walking on water. They called
to Madame Gaudron to be careful how she trod on account of her
condition. Monsieur Madinier wanted to show them the gilding and
paintings of the ceiling; but it nearly broke their necks to look up
above, and they could distinguish nothing. Then, before entering the
Square Salon, he pointed to a window, saying:

"That's the balcony from which Charles IX. fired on the people."

He looked back to make sure the party was following. In the middle of
the Salon Carre, he held up his hand. "There are only masterpieces
here," he said, in a subdued voice, as though in church. They went all
around the room. Gervaise wanted to know about "The Wedding at Cana."
Coupeau paused to stare at the "Mona Lisa," saying that she reminded
him of one of his aunts. Boche and Bibi-the-Smoker snickered at the
nudes, pointing them out to each other and winking. The Gaudrons
looked at the "Virgin" of Murillo, he with his mouth open, she with
her hands folded on her belly.

When they had been all around the Salon, Monsieur Madinier wished them
to go round it again, it was so worth while. He was very attentive to
Madame Lorilleux, because of her silk dress; and each time that she
questioned him he answered her gravely, with great assurance. She was
curious about "Titian's Mistress" because the yellow hair resembled
her own. He told her it was "La Belle Ferronniere," a mistress of
Henry IV. about whom there had been a play at the Ambigu.

Then the wedding party invaded the long gallery occupied by the
Italian and Flemish schools. More paintings, always paintings, saints,
men and women, with faces which some of them could understand,
landscapes that were all black, animals turned yellow, a medley of
people and things, the great mixture of the colors of which was
beginning to give them all violent headaches. Monsieur Madinier no
longer talked as he slowly headed the procession, which followed him
in good order, with stretched necks and upcast eyes. Centuries of art
passed before their bewildered ignorance, the fine sharpness of the
early masters, the splendors of the Venetians, the vigorous life,
beautiful with light, of the Dutch painters. But what interested them
most were the artists who were copying, with their easels planted
amongst the people, painting away unrestrainedly, an old lady, mounted
on a pair of high steps, working a big brush over the delicate sky of
an immense painting, struck them as something most peculiar.

Slowly the word must have gone around that a wedding party was
visiting the Louvre. Several painters came over with big smiles. Some
visitors were so curious that they went to sit on benches ahead of the
group in order to be comfortable while they watched them pass in
review. Museum guards bit back comments. The wedding party was now
quite weary and beginning to drag their feet.

Monsieur Madinier was reserving himself to give more effect to a
surprise that he had in store. He went straight to the "Kermesse" of
Rubens; but still he said nothing. He contented himself with directing
the others' attention to the picture by a sprightly glance. The ladies
uttered faint cries the moment they brought their noses close to the
painting. Then, blushing deeply they turned away their heads. The men
though kept them there, cracking jokes, and seeking for the coarser
details.

"Just look!" exclaimed Boche, "it's worth the money. There's one
spewing, and another, he's watering the dandelions; and that one--oh!
that one. Ah, well! They're a nice clean lot, they are!"

"Let us be off," said Monsieur Madinier, delighted with his success.
"There is nothing more to see here."

They retraced their steps, passing again through the Salon Carre and
the Apollo Gallery. Madame Lerat and Mademoiselle Remanjou complained,
declaring that their legs could scarcely bear them. But the cardboard
box manufacturer wanted to show Lorilleux the old jewelry. It was
close by in a little room which he could find with his eyes shut.
However, he made a mistake and led the wedding party astray through
seven or eight cold, deserted rooms, only ornamented with severe
looking-glass cases, containing numberless broken pots and hideous
little figures.

While looking for an exit they stumbled into the collection of
drawings. It was immense. Through room after room they saw nothing
interesting, just scribblings on paper that filled all the cases and
covered the walls. They thought there was no end to these drawings.

Monsieur Madinier, losing his head, not willing to admit that he did
not know his way, ascended a flight of stairs, making the wedding
party mount to the next floor. This time they traversed the Naval
Museum, among models of instruments and cannons, plans in relief, and
vessels as tiny as playthings. After going a long way, and walking for
a quarter of an hour, the party came upon another staircase; and,
having descended this, found itself once more surrounded by the
drawings. Then despair took possession of them as they wandered at
random through long halls, following Monsieur Madinier, who was
furious and mopping the sweat from his forehead. He accused the
government of having moved the doors around. Museum guards and
visitors looked on with astonishment as the procession, still in a
column of couples, passed by. They passed again through the Salon
Carre, the French Gallery and then along the cases where minor Eastern
divinities slumbered peacefully. It seemed they would never find their
way out. They were getting tired and made a lot of noise.

"Closing time! Closing time!" called out the attendants, in a loud
tone of voice.

And the wedding party was nearly locked in. An attendant was obliged
to place himself at the head of it, and conduct it to a door. Then in
the courtyard of the Louvre, when it had recovered its umbrellas from
the cloakroom, it breathed again. Monsieur Madinier regained his
assurance. He had made a mistake in not turning to the left, now he
recollected that the jewelry was to the left. The whole party
pretended to be very pleased at having seen all they had.

Four o'clock was striking. There were still two hours to be employed
before the dinner time, so it was decided they should take a stroll,
just to occupy the interval. The ladies, who were very tired, would
have preferred to sit down; but, as no one offered any refreshments,
they started off, following the line of quays. There they encountered
another shower and so sharp a one that in spite of the umbrellas, the
ladies' dresses began to get wet. Madame Lorilleux, her heart sinking
within her each time a drop fell upon her black silk, proposed that
they should shelter themselves under the Pont-Royal; besides if the
others did not accompany her, she threatened to go all by herself. And
the procession marched under one of the arches of the bridge. They
were very comfortable there. It was, most decidedly a capital idea!
The ladies, spreading their handkerchiefs over the paving-stones, sat
down with their knees wide apart, and pulled out the blades of grass
that grew between the stones with both hands, whilst they watched the
dark flowing water as though they were in the country. The men amused
themselves with calling out very loud, so as to awaken the echoes of
the arch. Boche and Bibi-the-Smoker shouted insults into the air at
the top of their voices, one after the other. They laughed
uproariously when the echo threw the insults back at them. When their
throats were hoarse from shouting, they made a game of skipping flat
stones on the surface of the Seine.

The shower had ceased but the whole party felt so comfortable that no
one thought of moving away. The Seine was flowing by, an oily sheet
carrying bottle corks, vegetable peelings, and other refuse that
sometimes collected in temporary whirlpools moving along with the
turbulent water. Endless traffic rumbled on the bridge overhead, the
noisy bustle of Paris, of which they could glimpse only the rooftops
to the left and right, as though they were in the bottom of a deep
pit.

Mademoiselle Remanjou sighed; if the leaves had been out this would
have reminded her of a bend of the Marne where she used to go with a
young man. It still made her cry to think of him.

At last, Monsieur Madinier gave the signal for departure. They passed
through the Tuileries gardens, in the midst of a little community of
children, whose hoops and balls upset the good order of the couples.
Then as the wedding party on arriving at the Place Vendome looked up
at the column, Monsieur Madinier gallantly offered to treat the ladies
to a view from the top. His suggestion was considered extremely
amusing. Yes, yes, they would go up; it would give them something to
laugh about for a long time. Besides, it would be full of interest for
those persons who had never been higher than a cow pasture.

"Do you think Clump-clump will venture inside there with her leg all
out of place?" murmured Madame Lorilleux.

"I'll go up with pleasure," said Madame Lerat, "but I won't have any
men walking behind me."

And the whole party ascended. In the narrow space afforded by the
spiral staircase, the twelve persons crawled up one after the other,
stumbling against the worn steps, and clinging to the walls. Then,
when the obscurity became complete, they almost split their sides with
laughing. The ladies screamed when the gentlemen pinched their legs.
But they were weren't stupid enough to say anything! The proper plan
is to think that it is the mice nibbling at them. It wasn't very
serious; the men knew when to stop.

Boche thought of a joke and everyone took it up. They called down to
Madame Gaudron to ask her if she could squeeze her belly through. Just
think! If she should get stuck there, she would completely block the
passage, and how would they ever get out? They laughed so at the jokes
about her belly that the column itself vibrated. Boche was now quite
carried away and declared that they were growing old climbing up this
chimney pipe. Was it ever coming to an end, or did it go right up to
heaven? He tried to frighten the ladies by telling them the structure
was shaking.

Coupeau, meanwhile, said nothing. He was behind Gervaise, with his arm
around her waist, and felt that she was everything perfect to him.
When they suddenly emerged again into the daylight, he was just in the
act of kissing her on the cheek.

"Well! You're a nice couple; you don't stand on ceremony," said Madame
Lorilleux with a scandalized air.

Bibi-the-Smoker pretended to be furious. He muttered between his
teeth. "You made such a noise together! I wasn't even able to count
the steps."

But Monsieur Madinier was already up on the platform, pointing out the
different monuments. Neither Madame Fauconnier nor Mademoiselle
Remanjou would on any consideration leave the staircase. The thought
of the pavement below made their blood curdle, and they contented
themselves with glancing out of the little door. Madame Lerat, who was
bolder, went round the narrow terrace, keeping close to the bronze
dome; but, /mon Dieu/, it gave one a rude emotion to think that one
only had to slip off. The men were a little paler than usual as they
stared down at the square below. You would think you were up in mid-
air, detached from everything. No, it wasn't fun, it froze your very
insides.

Monsieur Madinier told them to raise their eyes and look straight into
the distance to avoid feeling dizzy. He went on pointing out the
Invalides, the Pantheon, Notre Dame and the Montmartre hill. Madame
Lorilleux asked if they could see the place where they were to have
dinner, the Silver Windmill on the Boulevard de la Chapelle. For ten
minutes they tried to see it, even arguing about it. Everyone had
their own idea where it was.

"It wasn't worth while coming up here to bite each other's noses off,"
said Boche, angrily as he turned to descend the staircase.

The wedding party went down, unspeaking and sulky, awakening no other
sound beyond that of shoes clanking on the stone steps. When it
reached the bottom, Monsieur Madinier wished to pay; but Coupeau would
not permit him, and hastened to place twenty-four sous into the
keeper's hand, two sous for each person. So they returned by the
Boulevards and the Faubourg du Poissonniers. Coupeau, however,
considered that their outing could not end like that. He bundled them
all into a wineshop where they took some vermouth.

The repast was ordered for six o'clock. At the Silver Windmill, they
had been waiting for the wedding party for a good twenty minutes.
Madame Boche, who had got a lady living in the same house to attend to
her duties for the evening, was conversing with mother Coupeau in the
first floor room, in front of the table, which was all laid out; and
the two youngsters, Claude and Etienne, whom she had brought with her,
were playing about beneath the table and amongst the chairs. When
Gervaise, on entering caught sight of the little ones, whom she had
not seen all the day, she took them on her knees, and caressed and
kissed them.

"Have they been good?" asked she of Madame Boche. "I hope they haven't
worried you too much."

And as the latter related the things the little rascals had done
during the afternoon, and which would make one die with laughing, the
mother again took them up and pressed them to her breast, seized with
an overpowering outburst of maternal affection.

"It's not very pleasant for Coupeau, all the same," Madame Lorilleux
was saying to the other ladies, at the end of the room.

Gervaise had kept her smiling peacefulness from the morning, but after
the long walk she appeared almost sad at times as she watched her
husband and the Lorilleuxs in a thoughtful way. She had the feeling
that Coupeau was a little afraid of his sister. The evening before, he
had been talking big, swearing he would put them in their places if
they didn't behave. However, she could see that in their presence he
was hanging on their words, worrying when he thought they might be
displeased. This gave the young bride some cause for worry about the
future.

They were now only waiting for My-Boots, who had not yet put in an
appearance.

"Oh! blow him!" cried Coupeau, "let's begin. You'll see, he'll soon
turn up, he's got a hollow nose, he can scent the grub from afar. I
say he must be amusing himself, if he's still standing like a post on
the Route de Saint-Denis!"

Then the wedding party, feeling very lively, sat down making a great
noise with the chairs. Gervaise was between Lorilleux and Monsieur
Madinier, and Coupeau between Madame Fauconnier and Madame Lorilleux.
The other guests seated themselves where they liked, because it always
ended with jealousies and quarrels, when one settled their places for
them. Boche glided to a seat beside Madame Lerat. Bibi-the-Smoker had
for neighbors Mademoiselle Remanjou and Madame Gaudron. As for Madame
Boche and mother Coupeau, they were right at the end of the table,
looking after the children, cutting up their meat and giving them
something to drink, but not much wine.

"Does nobody say grace?" asked Boche, whilst the ladies arranged their
skirts under the table-cloth, so as not to get them stained.

But Madame Lorilleux paid no attention to such pleasantries. The
vermicelli soup, which was nearly cold, was gulped down very quickly,
their lips making a hissing noise against the spoons. Two waiters
served at table, dressed in little greasy jackets and not over-clean
white aprons. By the four open windows overlooking the acacias of the
courtyard there entered the clear light of the close of a stormy day,
with the atmosphere purified thereby though without sufficiently
cooling it. The light reflected from the humid corner of trees tinged
the haze-filled room with green and made leaf shadows dance along the
table-cloth, from which came a vague aroma of dampness and mildew.

Two large mirrors, one at each end of the room, seemed to stretch out
the table. The heavy crockery with which it was set was beginning to
turn yellow and the cutlery was scratched and grimed with grease. Each
time a waiter came through the swinging doors from the kitchen a whiff
of odorous burnt lard came with him.

"Don't all talk at once," said Boche, as everyone remained silent with
his nose in his plate.

They were drinking the first glass of wine as their eyes followed two
meat pies which the waiters were handing round when My-Boots entered
the room.

"Well, you're a scurvy lot, you people!" said he. "I've been wearing
my pins out for three hours waiting on that road, and a gendarme even
came and asked me for my papers. It isn't right to play such dirty
tricks on a friend! You might at least have sent me word by a
commissionaire. Ah! no, you know, joking apart, it's too bad. And with
all that, it rained so hard that I got my pickets full of water. Honor
bright, you might still catch enough fish in 'em for a meal."

The others wriggled with laughter. That animal My-Boots was just a bit
on; he had certainly already stowed away his two quarts of wine,
merely to prevent his being bothered by all that frog's liquor with
which the storm had deluged his limbs.

"Hallo! Count Leg-of-Mutton!" said Coupeau, "just go and sit yourself
there, beside Madame Gaudron. You see you were expected."

Oh, he did not mind, he would soon catch the others up; and he asked
for three helpings of soup, platefuls of vermicelli, in which he
soaked enormous slices of bread. Then, when they had attacked the meat
pies, he became the profound admiration of everyone at the table. How
he stowed it away! The bewildered waiters helped each other to pass
him bread, thin slices which he swallowed at a mouthful. He ended by
losing his temper; he insisted on having a loaf placed on the table
beside him. The landlord, very anxious, came for a moment and looked
in at the door. The party, which was expecting him, again wriggled
with laughter. It seemed to upset the caterer. What a rum card he was
that My-Boots! One day he had eaten a dozen hard-boiled eggs and drank
a dozen glasses of wine while the clock was striking twelve! There are
not many who can do that. And Mademoiselle Remanjou, deeply moved,
watched My-Boots chew whilst Monsieur Madinier, seeking for a word to
express his almost respectful astonishment, declared that such a
capacity was extraordinary.

There was a brief silence. A waiter had just placed on the table a
ragout of rabbits in a vast dish as deep as a salad-bowl. Coupeau, who
liked fun, started another joke.

"I say, waiter, that rabbit's from the housetops. It still mews."

And in fact, a faint mew perfectly imitated seemed to issue from the
dish. It was Coupeau who did that with his throat, without opening his
lips; a talent which at all parties, met with decided success, so much
so that he never ordered a dinner abroad without having a rabbit
ragout. After that he purred. The ladies pressed their napkins to
their mouths to try and stop their laughter. Madame Fauconnier asked
for a head, she only liked that part. Mademoiselle Remanjou had a
weakness for the slices of bacon. And as Boche said he preferred the
little onions when they were nicely broiled, Madame Lerat screwed up
her lips, and murmured:

"I can understand that."

She was a dried up stick, living the cloistered life of a hard-working
woman imprisoned within her daily routine, who had never had a man
stick his nose into her room since the death of her husband; yet she
had an obsession with double meanings and indecent allusions that were
sometimes so far off the mark that only she understood them.

As Boche leaned toward her and, in a whisper, asked for an
explanation, she resumed:

"Little onions, why of course. That's quite enough, I think."

The general conversation was becoming grave. Each one was talking of
his trade. Monsieur Madinier raved about the cardboard business. There
were some real artists. For an example, he mentioned Christmas gift
boxes, of which he'd seen samples that were marvels of splendor.

Lorilleux sneered at this; he was extremely vain because of working
with gold, feeling that it gave a sort of sheen to his fingers and his
whole personality. "In olden times jewelers wore swords like
gentlemen." He often cited the case of Bernard Palissy, even though he
really knew nothing about him.

Coupeau told of a masterpiece of a weather vane made by one of his
fellow workers which included a Greek column, a sheaf of wheat, a
basket of fruit, and a flag, all beautifully worked out of nothing but
strips of zinc shaped and soldered together.

Madame Lerat showed Bibi-the-Smoker how to make a rose by rolling the
handle of her knife between her bony fingers.

All the while, their voices had been rising louder and louder,
competing for attention. Shrill comments by Madame Fauconnier were
heard. She complained about the girls who worked for her, especially a
little apprentice who was nothing but a tart and had badly scorched
some sheets the evening before.

"You may talk," Lorilleux cried, banging his fist down on the table,
"but gold is gold."

And, in the midst of the silence caused by the statement of this fact,
the only sound heard was Mademoiselle Remanjou's shrill voice
continuing:

"Then I turn up the skirt and stitch it inside. I stick a pin in the
head to keep the cap on, and that's all; and they are sold for
thirteen sous a piece."

She was explaining how she dressed her dolls to My-Boots, whose jaws
were working slowly like grindstones. He did not listen, though he
kept nodding his head, but looked after the waiters to prevent them
removing any of the dishes he had not cleaned out. They had now
finished a veal stew with green beans. The roast was brought in, two
scrawny chickens resting on a bed of water cress which was limp from
the warming oven.

Outside, only the higher branches of the acacias were touched by the
setting sun. Inside, the greenish reflected light was thickened by
wisps of steam rising from the table, now messy with spilled wine and
gravy and the debris of the dinner. Along the wall were dirty dishes
and empty bottles which the waiters had piled there like a heap of
refuse. It was so hot that the men took off their jackets and
continued eating in their shirt sleeves.

"Madame Boche, please don't spread their butter so thick," said
Gervaise, who spoke but little, and who was watching Claude and
Etienne from a distance.

She got up from her seat, and went and talked for a minute while
standing behind the little ones' chairs. Children did not reason; they
would eat all day long without refusing a single thing; and then she
herself helped them to some chicken, a little of the breast. But
mother Coupeau said they might, just for once in a while, risk an
attack of indigestion. Madame Boche, in a low voice accused Boche of
caressing Madame Lerat's knees. Oh, he was a sly one, but he was
getting a little too gay. She had certainly seen his hand disappear.
If he did it again, drat him! She wouldn't hesitate throwing a pitcher
of water over his head.

In the partial silence, Monsieur Madinier was talking politics. "Their
law of May 31, is an abominable one. Now you must reside in a place
for two years. Three millions of citizens are struck off the voting
lists. I've been told that Bonaparte is, in reality, very much annoyed
for he loves the people; he has given them proofs."

He was a republican; but he admired the prince on account of his
uncle, a man the like of whom would never be seen again. Bibi-the-
Smoker flew into a passion. He had worked at the Elysee; he had seen
Bonaparte just as he saw My-Boots in front of him over there. Well
that muff of a president was just like a jackass, that was all! It was
said that he was going to travel about in the direction of Lyons; it
would be a precious good riddance of bad rubbish if he fell into some
hole and broke his neck. But, as the discussion was becoming too
heated, Coupeau had to interfere.

"Ah, well! How simple you all are to quarrel about politics. Politics
are all humbug! Do such things exist for us? Let there be any one as
king, it won't prevent me earning my five francs a day, and eating and
sleeping; isn't that so? No, it's too stupid to argue about!"

Lorilleux shook his head. He was born on the same day as the Count of
Chambord, the 29th of September, 1820. He was greatly struck with this
coincidence, indulging himself in a vague dream, in which he
established a connection between the king's return to France and his
own private fortunes. He never said exactly what he was expecting, but
he led people to suppose that when that time arrived something
extraordinarily agreeable would happen to him. So whenever he had a
wish too great to be gratified, he would put it off to another time,
when the king came back.

"Besides," observed he, "I saw the Count de Chambord one evening."

Every face was turned towards him.

"It's quite true. A stout man, in an overcoat, and with a good-natured
air. I was at Pequignot's, one of my friends who deals in furniture in
the Grand Rue de la Chapelle. The Count of Chambord had forgotten his
umbrella there the day before; so he came in, and just simply said,
like this: 'Will you please return me my umbrella?' Well, yes, it was
him; Pequignot gave me his word of honor it was."

Not one of the guests suggested the smallest doubt. They had now
arrived at dessert and the waiters were clearing the table with much
clattering of dishes. Madame Lorilleux, who up to then had been very
genteel, very much the lady, suddenly let fly with a curse. One of the
waiters had spilled something wet down her neck while removing a dish.
This time her silk dress would be stained for sure. Monsieur Madinier
had to examine her back, but he swore there was nothing to be seen.

Two platters of cheese, two dishes of fruit, and a floating island
pudding of frosted eggs in a deep salad-bowl had now been placed along
the middle of the table. The pudding caused a moment of respectful
attention even though the overdone egg whites had flattened on the
yellow custard. It was unexpected and seemed very fancy.

My-Boots was still eating. He had asked for another loaf. He finished
what there was of the cheese; and, as there was some cream left, he
had the salad-bowl passed to him, into which he sliced some large
pieces of bread as though for a soup.

"The gentleman is really remarkable," said Monsieur Madinier, again
giving way to his admiration.

Then the men rose to get their pipes. They stood for a moment behind
My-Boots, patting him on the back, and asking him if he was feeling
better. Bibi-the-Smoker lifted him up in his chair; but /tonnerre de
Dieu!/ the animal had doubled in weight. Coupeau joked that My-Boots
was only getting started, that now he was going to settle down and
really eat for the rest of the night. The waiters were startled and
quickly vanished from sight.

Boche, who had gone downstairs for a moment, came up to report the
proprietor's reaction. He was standing behind his bar, pale as death.
His wife, dreadfully upset, was wondering if any bakeries were still
open. Even the cat seemed deep in despair. This was as funny as could
be, really worth the price of the dinner. It was impossible to have a
proper dinner party without My-Boots, the bottomless pit. The other
men eyed him with a brooding jealousy as they puffed on their pipes.
Indeed, to be able to eat so much, you had to be very solidly built!

"I wouldn't care to be obliged to support you," said Madame Gaudron.
"Ah, no; you may take my word for that!"

"I say, little mother, no jokes," replied My-Boots, casting a side
glance at his neighbor's rotund figure. "You've swallowed more than I
have."

The others applauded, shouting "Bravo!"--it was well answered. It was
now pitch dark outside, three gas-jets were flaring in the room,
diffusing dim rays in the midst of the tobacco-smoke. The waiters,
after serving the coffee and the brandy, had removed the last piles of
dirty plates. Down below, beneath the three acacias, dancing had
commenced, a cornet-a-piston and two fiddles playing very loud, and
mingling in the warm night air with the rather hoarse laughter of
women.

"We must have a punch!" cried My-Boots; "two quarts of brandy, lots of
lemon, and a little sugar."

But Coupeau, seeing the anxious look on Gervaise's face in front of
him, got up from the table, declaring that there should be no more
drink. They had emptied twenty-five quarts, a quart and a half to each
person, counting the children as grown-up people; that was already too
much. They had had a feed together in good fellowship, and without
ceremony, because they esteemed each other, and wished to celebrate
the event of the day amongst themselves. Everything had been very
nice; they had had lots of fun. It wouldn't do to get cockeyed drunk
now, out of respect to the ladies. That was all he had to say, they
had come together to toast a marriage and they had done so.

Coupeau delivered the little speech with convincing sincerity and
punctuated each phrase by placing his hand on his heart. He won whole-
hearted approval from Lorilleux and Monsieur Madinier; but the other
four men, especially My-Boots, were already well lit and sneered. They
declared in hoarse drunken voices that they were thirsty and wanted
drinks.

"Those who're thirsty are thirsty, and those who aren't thirsty aren't
thirsty," remarked My-Boots. "Therefore, we'll order the punch. No one
need take offence. The aristocrats can drink sugar-and-water."

And as the zinc-worker commenced another sermon, the other, who had
risen on his legs, gave himself a slap, exclaiming:

"Come, let's have no more of that, my boy! Waiter, two quarts of your
aged stuff!"

So Coupeau said very well, only they would settle for the dinner at
once. It would prevent any disputes. The well-behaved people did not
want to pay for the drunkards; and it just happened that My-Boots,
after searching in his pockets for a long time, could only produce
three francs and seven sous. Well, why had they made him wait all that
time on the Route de Saint-Denis? He could not let himself be drowned
and so he had broken into his five-franc piece. It was the fault of
the others, that was all! He ended by giving the three francs, keeping
the seven sous for the morrow's tobacco. Coupeau, who was furious,
would have knocked him over had not Gervaise, greatly frightened,
pulled him by his coat, and begged him to keep cool. He decided to
borrow the two francs of Lorilleux, who after refusing them, lent them
on the sly, for his wife would never have consented to his doing so.

Monsieur Madinier went round with a plate. The spinster and the ladies
who were alone--Madame Lerat, Madame Fauconnier, Mademoiselle Remanjou
--discreetly placed their five-franc pieces in it first. Then the
gentlemen went to the other end of the room, and made up the accounts.
They were fifteen; it amounted therefore to seventy-five francs. When
the seventy-five francs were in the plate, each man added five sous
for the waiters. It took a quarter of an hour of laborious
calculations before everything was settled to the general
satisfaction.

But when Monsieur Madinier, who wished to deal direct with the
landlord, had got him to step up, the whole party became lost in
astonishment on hearing him say with a smile that there was still
something due to him. There were some extras; and, as the word
"extras" was greeted with angry exclamations, he entered into details:
--Twenty-five quarts of wine, instead of twenty, the number agreed
upon beforehand; the frosted eggs, which he had added, as the dessert
was rather scanty; finally, a quarter of a bottle of rum, served with
the coffee, in case any one preferred rum. Then a formidable quarrel
ensued. Coupeau, who was appealed to, protested against everything; he
had never mentioned twenty quarts; as for the frosted eggs, they were
included in the dessert, so much the worse for the landlord if he
choose to add them without being asked to do so. There remained the
rum, a mere nothing, just a mode of increasing the bill by putting on
the table spirits that no one thought anything about.

"It was on the tray with the coffee," he cried; "therefore it goes
with the coffee. Go to the deuce! Take your money, and never again
will we set foot in your den!"

"It's six francs more," repeated the landlord. "Pay me my six francs;
and with all that I haven't counted the four loaves that gentleman
ate!"

The whole party, pressing forward, surrounded him with furious
gestures and a yelping of voices choking with rage. The women
especially threw aside all reserve, and refused to add another
centime. This was some wedding dinner! Mademoiselle Remanjou vowed she
would never again attend such a party. Madame Fauconnier declared she
had had a very disappointing meal; at home she could have had a
finger-licking dish for only two francs. Madame Gaudron bitterly
complained that she had been shoved down to the worst end of the table
next to My-Boots who had ignored her. These parties never turned out
well, one should be more careful whom one invites. Gervaise had taken
refuge with mother Coupeau near one of the windows, feeling shamed as
she realized that all these recriminations would fall back upon her.

Monsieur Madinier ended by going down with the landlord. One could
hear them arguing below. Then, when half an hour had gone by the
cardboard box manufacturer returned; he had settled the matter by
giving three francs. But the party continued annoyed and exasperated,
constantly returning to the question of the extras. And the uproar
increased from an act of vigor on Madame Boche's part. She had kept
an eye on Boche, and at length detected him squeezing Madame Lerat
round the waist in a corner. Then, with all her strength, she flung a
water pitcher, which smashed against the wall.

"One can easily see that your husband's a tailor, madame," said the
tall widow, with a curl of the lip, full of a double meaning. "He's a
petticoat specialist, even though I gave him some pretty hard kicks
under the table."

The harmony of the evening was altogether upset. Everyone became more
and more ill-tempered. Monsieur Madinier suggested some singing, but
Bibi-the-Smoker, who had a fine voice, had disappeared some time
before; and Mademoiselle Remanjou, who was leaning out of the window,
caught sight of him under the acacias, swinging round a big girl who
was bare-headed. The cornet-a-piston and two fiddles were playing "/Le
Marchand de Moutarde/." The party now began to break up. My-Boots and
the Gaudrons went down to the dance with Boche sneaking along after
them. The twirling couples could be seen from the windows. The night
was still as though exhausted from the heat of the day. A serious
conversation started between Lorilleux and Monsieur Madinier. The
ladies examined their dresses carefully to see if they had been
stained.

Madame Lerat's fringe looked as though it had been dipped in the
coffee. Madame Fauconnier's chintz dress was spotted with gravy.
Mother Coupeau's green shawl, fallen from off a chair, was discovered
in a corner, rolled up and trodden upon. But it was Madame Lorilleux
especially who became more ill-tempered still. She had a stain on the
back of her dress; it was useless for the others to declare that she
had not--she felt it. And, by twisting herself about in front of a
looking-glass, she ended by catching a glimpse of it.

"What did I say?" cried she. "It's gravy from the fowl. The waiter
shall pay for the dress. I will bring an action against him. Ah! this
is a fit ending to such a day. I should have done better to have
stayed in bed. To begin with, I'm off. I've had enough of their
wretched wedding!"

And she left the room in a rage, causing the staircase to shake
beneath her heavy footsteps. Lorilleux ran after her. But all she
would consent to was that she would wait five minutes on the pavement
outside, if he wanted them to go off together. She ought to have left
directly after the storm, as she wished to do. She would make Coupeau
sorry for that day. Coupeau was dismayed when he heard how angry she
was. Gervaise agreed to leave at once to avoid embarrassing him any
more.

There was a flurry of quick good-night kisses. Monsieur Madinier was
to escort mother Coupeau home. Madame Boche would take Claude and
Etienne with her for the bridal night. The children were sound asleep
on chairs, stuffed full from the dinner. Just as the bridal couple and
Lorilleux were about to go out the door, a quarrel broke out near the
dance floor between their group and another group. Boche and My-Boots
were kissing a lady and wouldn't give her up to her escorts, two
soldiers.

It was scarcely eleven o'clock. On the Boulevard de la Chapelle, and
in the entire neighborhood of the Goutte-d'Or, the fortnight's pay,
which fell due on that Saturday, produced an enormous drunken uproar.
Madame Lorilleux was waiting beneath a gas-lamp about twenty paces
from the Silver Windmill. She took her husband's arm, and walked on in
front without looking round, at such a rate, that Gervaise and Coupeau
got quite out of breath in trying to keep up with them. Now and again
they stepped off the pavement to leave room for some drunkard who had
fallen there. Lorilleux looked back, endeavoring to make things
pleasant.

"We will see you as far as your door," said he.

But Madame Lorilleux, raising her voice, thought it a funny thing to
spend one's wedding night in such a filthy hole as the Hotel Boncoeur.
Ought they not to have put their marriage off, and have saved a few
sous to buy some furniture, so as to have had a home of their own on
the first night? Ah! they would be comfortable, right up under the
roof, packed into a little closet, at ten francs a month, where there
was not even the slightest air.

"I've given notice, we're not going to use the room up at the top of
the house," timidly interposed Coupeau. "We are keeping Gervaise's
room, which is larger."

Madame Lorilleux forgot herself. She turned abruptly round.

"That's worse than all!" cried she. "You're going to sleep in Clump-
clump's room."

Gervaise became quite pale. This nickname, which she received full in
the face for the first time, fell on her like a blow. And she fully
understood it, too, her sister-in-law's exclamation: the Clump-clump's
room was the room in which she had lived for a month with Lantier,
where the shreds of her past life still hung about. Coupeau did not
understand this, but merely felt hurt at the harsh nickname.

"You do wrong to christen others," he replied angrily. "You don't know
perhaps, that in the neighborhood they call you Cow's-Tail, because of
your hair. There, that doesn't please you, does it? Why should we not
keep the room on the first floor? To-night the children won't sleep
there, and we shall be very comfortable."

Madame Lorilleux added nothing further, but retired into her dignity,
horribly annoyed at being called Cow's-Tail. To cheer up Gervaise,
Coupeau squeezed her arm softly. He even succeeded in making her smile
by whispering into her ear that they were setting up housekeeping with
the grand sum of seven sous, three big two-sou pieces and one little
sou, which he jingled in his pocket.

When they reached the Hotel Boncoeur, the two couples wished each
other good-night, with an angry air; and as Coupeau pushed the two
women into each other's arms, calling them a couple of ninnies, a
drunken fellow, who seemed to want to go to the right, suddenly
slipped to the left and came tumbling between them.

"Why, it's old Bazouge!" said Lorilleux. "He's had his fill to-day."

Gervaise, frightened, squeezed up against the door of the hotel. Old
Bazouge, an undertaker's helper of some fifty years of age, had his
black trousers all stained with mud, his black cape hooked on to his
shoulder, and his black feather hat knocked in by some tumble he had
taken.

"Don't be afraid, he's harmless," continued Lorilleux. "He's a
neighbor of ours--the third room in the passage before us. He would
find himself in a nice mess if his people were to see him like this!"

Old Bazouge, however, felt offended at the young woman's evident
terror.

"Well, what!" hiccoughed he, "we ain't going to eat any one. I'm as
good as another any day, my little woman. No doubt I've had a drop!
When work's plentiful one must grease the wheels. It's not you, nor
your friends, who would have carried down the stiff 'un of forty-seven
stone whom I and a pal brought from the fourth floor to the pavement,
and without smashing him too. I like jolly people."

But Gervaise retreated further into the doorway, seized with a longing
to cry, which spoilt her day of sober-minded joy. She no longer
thought of kissing her sister-in-law, she implored Coupeau to get rid
of the drunkard. Then Bazouge, as he stumbled about, made a gesture of
philosophical disdain.

"That won't prevent you passing though our hands, my little woman.
You'll perhaps be glad to do so, one of these days. Yes, I know some
women who'd be much obliged if we did carry them off."

And, as Lorilleux led him away, he turned around, and stuttered out a
last sentence, between two hiccoughs.

"When you're dead--listen to this--when you're dead, it's for a long,
long time."



                             CHAPTER IV.

Then followed four years of hard work. In the neighborhood, Gervaise
and Coupeau had the reputation of being a happy couple, living in
retirement without quarrels, and taking a short walk regularly every
Sunday in the direction of St. Ouen. The wife worked twelve hours a
day at Madame Fauconnier's, and still found means to keep their
lodging as clean and bright as a new coined sou and to prepare the
meals for all her little family, morning and evening. The husband
never got drunk, brought his wages home every fortnight, and smoked a
pipe at his window in the evening, to get a breath of fresh air before
going to bed. They were frequently alluded to on account of their
nice, pleasant ways; and as between them they earned close upon nine
francs a day, it was reckoned that they were able to put by a good
deal of money.

However, during their first months together they had to struggle hard
to get by. Their wedding had left them owing two hundred francs. Also,
they detested the Hotel Boncoeur as they didn't like the other
occupants. Their dream was to have a home of their own with their own
furniture. They were always figuring how much they would need and
decided three hundred and fifty francs at least, in order to be able
to buy little items that came up later.

They were in despair at ever being able to collect such a large sum
when a lucky chance came their way. An old gentleman at Plassans
offered to take the older boy, Claude, and send him to an academy down
there. The old man, who loved art, had previously been much impressed
by Claude's sketches. Claude had already begun to cost them quite a
bit. Now, with only Etienne to support, they were able to accumulate
the money in a little over seven months. One day they were finally
able to buy their own furniture from a second-hand dealer on Rue
Belhomme. Their hearts filled with happiness, they celebrated by
walking home along the exterior Boulevards.

They had purchased a bed, a night table, a chest of drawers with a
marble top, a wardrobe, a round table covered with oilcloth, and six
chairs. All were of dark mahogany. They also bought blankets, linen,
and kitchen utensils that were scarcely used. It meant settling down
and giving themselves a status in life as property owners, as persons
to be respected.

For two months past they had been busy seeking some new apartments. At
first they wanted above everything to hire these in the big house of
the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. But there was not a single room to let
there; so that they had to relinquish their old dream. To tell the
truth, Gervaise was rather glad in her heart; the neighborhood of the
Lorilleux almost door to door, frightened her immensely. Then, they
looked about elsewhere. Coupeau, very properly did not wish to be far
from Madame Fauconnier's so that Gervaise could easily run home at any
hour of the day. And at length they met with exactly what suited them,
a large room with a small closet and a kitchen, in the Rue Neuve de la
Goutte-d'Or, almost opposite the laundress's. This was in a small two-
story building with a very steep staircase. There were two apartments
on the second floor, one to the left, the other to the right, The
ground floor was occupied by a man who rented out carriages, which
filled the sheds in the large stable yard by the street.

Gervaise was delighted with this as it made her feel she was back in a
country town. With no close neighbors there would be no gossip to
worry about in this little corner. It reminded her of a small lane
outside the ramparts of Plassans. She could even see her own window
while ironing at the laundry by just tilting her head to the side.

They took possession of their new abode at the April quarter. Gervaise
was then eight months advanced. But she showed great courage, saying
with a laugh that the baby helped her as she worked; she felt its
influence growing within her and giving her strength. Ah, well! She
just laughed at Coupeau whenever he wanted her to lie down and rest
herself! She would take to her bed when the labor pains came. That
would be quite soon enough as with another mouth to feed, they would
have to work harder than ever.

She made their new place bright and shiny before helping her husband
install the furniture. She loved the furniture, polishing it and
becoming almost heart-broken at the slightest scratch. Any time she
knocked into the furniture while cleaning she would stop with a sudden
shock as though she had hurt herself.

The chest of drawers was especially dear to her. She thought it
handsome, sturdy and most respectable-looking. The dream that she
hadn't dared to mention was to get a clock and put it right in the
middle of the marble top. It would make a splendid effect. She
probably would have bought one right away except for the expected
baby.

The couple were thoroughly enchanted with their new home. Etienne's
bed occupied the small closet, where there was still room to put
another child's crib. The kitchen was a very tiny affair and as dark
as night, but by leaving the door wide open, one could just manage to
see; besides, Gervaise had not to cook meals for thirty people, all
she wanted was room to make her soup. As for the large room, it was
their pride. The first thing in the morning, they drew the curtains of
the alcove, white calico curtains; and the room was thus transformed
into a dining-room, with the table in the centre, and the wardrobe and
chest of drawers facing each other.

They stopped up the chimney since it burned as much as fifteen sous of
coal a day. A small cast-iron stove on the marble hearth gave them
enough warmth on cold days for only seven sous. Coupeau had also done
his best to decorate the walls. There was a large engraving showing a
marshal of France on horseback with a baton in his hand. Family
photographs were arranged in two rows on top of the chest of drawers
on each side of an old holy-water basin in which they kept matches.
Busts of Pascal and Beranger were on top of the wardrobe. It was
really a handsome room.

"Guess how much we pay here?" Gervaise would ask of every visitor she
had.

And whenever they guessed too high a sum, she triumphed and delighted
at being so well suited for such a little money, cried:

"One hundred and fifty francs, not a sou more! Isn't it almost like
having it for nothing!"

The street, Rue Neuve de la Goutte d'Or, played an important part in
their contentment. Gervaise's whole life was there, as she traveled
back and forth endlessly between her home and Madame Fauconnier's
laundry. Coupeau now went down every evening and stood on the doorstep
to smoke his pipe. The poorly-paved street rose steeply and had no
sidewalks. Toward Rue de la Goutte d'Or there were some gloomy shops
with dirty windows. There were shoemakers, coopers, a run-down
grocery, and a bankrupt cafe whose closed shutters were covered with
posters. In the opposite direction, toward Paris, four-story buildings
blocked the sky. Their ground floor shops were all occupied by
laundries with one exception--a green-painted store front typical of a
small-town hair-dresser. Its shop windows were full of variously
colored flasks. It lighted up this drab corner with the gay brightness
of its copper bowls which were always shining.

The most pleasant part of the street was in between, where the
buildings were fewer and lower, letting in more sunlight. The carriage
sheds, the plant which manufactured soda water, and the wash-house
opposite made a wide expanse of quietness. The muffled voices of the
washerwomen and the rhythmic puffing of the steam engine seemed to
deepen the almost religious silence. Open fields and narrow lanes
vanishing between dark walls gave it the air of a country village.
Coupeau, always amused by the infrequent pedestrians having to jump
over the continuous streams of soapy water, said it reminded him of a
country town where his uncle had taken him when he was five years old.
Gervaise's greatest joy was a tree growing in the courtyard to the
left of their window, an acacia that stretched out a single branch and
yet, with its meager foliage, lent charm to the entire street.

It was on the last day of April that Gervaise was confined. The pains
came on in the afternoon, towards four o'clock, as she was ironing a
pair of curtains at Madame Fauconnier's. She would not go home at
once, but remained there wriggling about on a chair, and continuing
her ironing every time the pain allowed her to do so; the curtains
were wanted quickly and she obstinately made a point of finishing
them. Besides, perhaps after all it was only a colic; it would never
do to be frightened by a bit of a stomach-ache. But as she was talking
of starting on some shirts, she became quite pale. She was obliged to
leave the work-shop, and cross the street doubled in two, holding on
to the walls. One of the workwomen offered to accompany her; she
declined, but begged her to go instead for the midwife, close by, in
the Rue de la Charbonniere. This was only a false alarm; there was no
need to make a fuss. She would be like that no doubt all through the
night. It was not going to prevent her getting Coupeau's dinner ready
as soon as she was indoors; then she might perhaps lie down on the bed
a little, but without undressing. On the staircase she was seized with
such a violent pain, that she was obliged to sit down on one of the
stairs; and she pressed her two fists against her mouth to prevent
herself from crying out, for she would have been ashamed to have been
found there by any man, had one come up. The pain passed away; she was
able to open her door, feeling relieved, and thinking that she had
decidedly been mistaken. That evening she was going to make a stew
with some neck chops. All went well while she peeled the potatoes. The
chops were cooking in a saucepan when the pains returned. She mixed
the gravy as she stamped about in front of the stove, almost blinded
with her tears. If she was going to give birth, that was no reason why
Coupeau should be kept without his dinner. At length the stew began to
simmer on a fire covered with cinders. She went into the other room,
and thought she would have time to lay the cloth at one end of the
table. But she was obliged to put down the bottle of wine very
quickly; she no longer had strength to reach the bed; she fell
prostrate, and she had more pains on a mat on the floor. When the
midwife arrived, a quarter of an hour later, she found mother and baby
lying there on the floor.

The zinc-worker was still employed at the hospital. Gervaise would not
have him disturbed. When he came home at seven o'clock, he found her
in bed, well covered up, looking very pale on the pillow, and the
child crying, swathed in a shawl at it's mother's feet.

"Ah, my poor wife!" said Coupeau, kissing Gervaise. "And I was joking
only an hour ago, whilst you were crying with pain! I say, you don't
make much fuss about it--the time to sneeze and it's all over."

She smiled faintly; then she murmured: "It's a girl."

"Right!" the zinc-worker replied, joking so as to enliven her, "I
ordered a girl! Well, now I've got what I wanted! You do everything I
wish!" And, taking the child up in his arms, he continued: "Let's have
a look at you, miss! You've got a very black little mug. It'll get
whiter, never fear. You must be good, never run about the streets, and
grow up sensible like your papa and mamma."

Gervaise looked at her daughter very seriously, with wide open eyes,
slowly overshadowed with sadness, for she would rather have had a boy.
Boys can talk care of themselves and don't have to run such risks on
the streets of Paris as girls do. The midwife took the infant from
Coupeau. She forbade Gervaise to do any talking; it was bad enough
there was so much noise around her.

Then the zinc-worker said that he must tell the news to mother Coupeau
and the Lorilleuxs, but he was dying with hunger, he must first of all
have his dinner. It was a great worry to the invalid to see him have
to wait on himself, run to the kitchen for the stew, eat it out of a
soup plate, and not be able to find the bread. In spite of being told
not to do so, she bewailed her condition, and fidgeted about in her
bed. It was stupid of her not to have managed to set the cloth, the
pains had laid her on her back like a blow from a bludgeon. Her poor
old man would not think it kind of her to be nursing herself up there
whilst he was dining so badly. At least were the potatoes cooked
enough? She no longer remembered whether she had put salt in them.

"Keep quiet!" cried the midwife.

"Ah! if only you could stop her from wearing herself out!" said
Coupeau with his mouth full. "If you were not here, I'd bet she'd get
up to cut my bread. Keep on your back, you big goose! You mustn't move
about, otherwise it'll be a fortnight before you'll be able to stand
on your legs. Your stew's very good. Madame will eat some with me,
won't you, Madame?"

The midwife declined; but she was willing to accept a glass of wine,
because it had upset her, said she to find the poor woman with the
baby on the mat. Coupeau at length went off to tell the news to his
relations. Half an hour later he returned with all of them, mother
Coupeau, the Lorilleuxs, and Madame Lerat, whom he had met at the
latter's.

"I've brought you the whole gang!" cried Coupeau. "It can't be helped!
They wanted to see you. Don't open your mouth, it's forbidden. They'll
stop here and look at you without ceremony, you know. As for me, I'm
going to make them some coffee, and of the right sort!"

He disappeared into the kitchen. Mother Coupeau after kissing
Gervaise, became amazed at the child's size. The two other women also
kissed the invalid on her cheeks. And all three, standing before the
bed, commented with divers exclamations on the details of the
confinement--a most remarkable confinement, just like having a tooth
pulled, nothing more.

Madame Lerat examined the baby all over, declared she was well formed,
even added that she could grow up into an attractive woman. Noticing
that the head had been squeezed into a point on top, she kneaded it
gently despite the infant's cries, trying to round it a bit. Madame
Lorilleux grabbed the baby from her; that could be enough to give the
poor little thing all sorts of vicious tendencies, meddling with it
like that while her skull was still soft. She then tried to figure out
who the baby resembled. This almost led to a quarrel. Lorilleux,
peering over the women's shoulders, insisted that the little girl
didn't look the least bit like Coupeau. Well, maybe a little around
the nose, nothing more. She was her mother all over again, with big
eyes like hers. Certainly there were no eyes like that in the Coupeau
family.

Coupeau, however, had failed to reappear. One could hear him in the
kitchen struggling with the grate and the coffee-pot. Gervaise was
worrying herself frightfully; it was not the proper thing for a man to
make coffee; and she called and told him what to do, without listening
to the midwife's energetic "hush!"

"Here we are!" said Coupeau, entering with the coffee-pot in his hand.
"Didn't I just have a bother with it! It all went wrong on purpose!
Now we'll drink out of glasses, won't we? Because you know, the cups
are still at the shop."

They seated themselves around the table, and the zinc-worker insisted
on pouring out the coffee himself. It smelt very strong, it was none
of that weak stuff. When the midwife had sipped hers up, she went off;
everything was going on nicely, she was not required. If the young
woman did not pass a good night they were to send for her on the
morrow. She was scarcely down the staircase, when Madame Lorilleux
called her a glutton and a good-for-nothing. She put four lumps of
sugar in her coffee, and charged fifteen francs for leaving you with
your baby all by yourself. But Coupeau took her part; he would
willingly fork out the fifteen francs. After all those sort of women
spent their youth in studying, they were right to charge a good price.

It was then Lorilleux who got into a quarrel with Madame Lerat by
maintaining that, in order to have a son, the head of the bed should
be turned to the north. She shrugged her shoulders at such nonsense,
offering another formula which consisted in hiding under the mattress,
without letting your wife know, a handful of fresh nettles picked in
bright sunlight.

The table had been pushed over close to the bed. Until ten o'clock
Gervaise lay there, smiling although she was only half awake. She was
becoming more and more weary, her head turned sideways on the pillow.
She no longer had the energy to venture a remark or a gesture. It
seemed to her that she was dead, a very sweet death, from the depths
of which she was happy to observe the others still in the land of the
living. The thin cries of her baby daughter rose above the hum of
heavy voices that were discussing a recent murder on Rue du Bon Puits,
at the other end of La Chapelle.

Then, as the visitors were thinking of leaving, they spoke of the
christening. The Lorilleux had promised to be godfather and godmother;
they looked very glum over the matter. However, if they had not been
asked to stand they would have felt rather peculiar. Coupeau did not
see any need for christening the little one; it certainly would not
procure her an income of ten thousand francs, and besides she might
catch a cold from it. The less one had to do with priests the better.
But mother Coupeau called him a heathen. The Lorilleux, without going
and eating consecrated bread in church, plumed themselves on their
religious sentiments.

"It shall be next Sunday, if you like," said the chainmaker.

And Gervaise having consented by a nod, everyone kissed her and told
her to take good care of herself. They also wished the baby good-bye.
Each one went and leant over the little trembling body with smiles and
loving words as though she were able to understand. They called her
Nana, the pet name for Anna, which was her godmother's name.

"Good night, Nana. Come be a good girl, Nana."

When they had at length gone off, Coupeau drew his chair close up to
the bed and finished his pipe, holding Gervaise's hand in his. He
smoked slowly, deeply affected and uttering sentences between the
puffs.

"Well, old woman, they've made your head ache, haven't they? You see I
couldn't prevent them coming. After all, it shows their friendship.
But we're better alone, aren't we? I wanted to be alone like this with
you. It has seemed such a long evening to me! Poor little thing, she's
had a lot to go through! Those shrimps, when they come out into the
world, have no idea of the pain they cause. It must really almost be
like being split in two. Where is does it hurt the most, that I may
kiss it and make it well?"

He had carefully slid one of his big hands under her back, and now he
drew her toward him, bending over to kiss her stomach through the
covers, touched by a rough man's compassion for the suffering of a
woman in childbirth. He inquired if he was hurting her. Gervaise felt
very happy, and answered him that it didn't hurt any more at all. She
was only worried about getting up as soon as possible, because there
was no time to lie about now. He assured her that he'd be responsible
for earning the money for the new little one. He would be a real bum
if he abandoned her and the little rascal. The way he figured it, what
really counted was bringing her up properly. Wasn't that so?

Coupeau did not sleep much that night. He covered up the fire in the
stove. Every hour he had to get up to give the baby spoonfuls of
lukewarm sugar and water. That did not prevent his going off to his
work in the morning as usual. He even took advantage of his lunch-hour
to make a declaration of the birth at the mayor's. During this time
Madame Boche, who had been informed of the event, had hastened to go
and pass the day with Gervaise. But the latter, after ten hours of
sleep, bewailed her position, saying that she already felt pains all
over her through having been so long in bed. She would become quite
ill if they did not let her get up. In the evening, when Coupeau
returned home, she told him all her worries; no doubt she had
confidence in Madame Boche, only it put her beside herself to see a
stranger installed in her room, opening the drawers, and touching her
things.

On the morrow the concierge, on returning from some errand, found her
up, dressed, sweeping and getting her husband's dinner ready; and it
was impossible to persuade her to go to bed again. They were trying to
make a fool of her perhaps! It was all very well for ladies to pretend
to be unable to move. When one was not rich one had no time for that
sort of thing. Three days after her confinement she was ironing
petticoats at Madame Fauconnier's, banging her irons and all in a
perspiration from the great heat of the stove.

On the Saturday evening, Madame Lorilleux brought her presents for her
godchild--a cup that cost thirty-five sous, and a christening dress,
plaited and trimmed with some cheap lace, which she had got for six
francs, because it was slightly soiled. On the morrow, Lorilleux, as
godfather, gave the mother six pounds of sugar. They certainly did
things properly! At the baptism supper which took place at the
Coupeaus that evening, they did not come empty-handed. Lorilleux
carried a bottle of fine wine under each arm and his wife brought a
large custard pie from a famous pastry shop on Chaussee Clignancourt.
But the Lorilleuxs made sure that the entire neighborhood knew they
had spent twenty francs. As soon as Gervaise learned of their
gossiping, furious, she stopped giving them credit for generosity.

It was at the christening feast that the Coupeaus ended by becoming
intimately acquainted with their neighbors on the opposite side of the
landing. The other lodging in the little house was occupied by two
persons, mother and son, the Goujets as they were called. Until then
the two families had merely nodded to each other on the stairs and in
the street, nothing more; the Coupeaus thought their neighbors seemed
rather bearish. Then the mother, having carried up a pail of water for
Gervaise on the morrow of her confinement, the latter had thought it
the proper thing to invite them to the feast, more especially as she
considered them very respectable people. And naturally, they there
became well acquainted with each other.

The Goujets came from the Departement du Nord. The mother mended lace;
the son, a blacksmith, worked at an iron bolt factory. They had lived
in their lodging for five years. Behind the quiet peacefulness of
their life, a long standing sorrow was hidden. Goujet the father, one
day when furiously drunk at Lille, had beaten a comrade to death with
an iron bar and had afterwards strangled himself in prison with his
handkerchief. The widow and child, who had come to Paris after their
misfortune, always felt the tragedy hanging over their heads, and
atoned for it by a strict honesty and an unvarying gentleness and
courage. They had a certain amount of pride in their attitude and
regarded themselves as better than other people.

Madame Goujet, dressed in black as usual, her forehead framed in a
nun's hood, had a pale, calm, matronly face, as if the whiteness of
the lace and the delicate work of her fingers had cast a glow of
serenity over her. Goujet was twenty-three years old, huge,
magnificently built, with deep blue eyes and rosy cheeks, and the
strength of Hercules. His comrades at the shop called him "Golden
Mouth" because of his handsome blonde beard.

Gervaise at once felt a great friendship for these people. When she
entered their home for the first time, she was amazed at the
cleanliness of the lodging. There was no denying it, one might blow
about the place without raising a grain of dust; and the tiled floor
shone like a mirror. Madame Goujet made her enter her son's room, just
to see it. It was pretty and white like the room of a young girl; an
iron bedstead with muslin curtains, a table, a washstand, and a narrow
bookcase hanging against the wall. Then there were pictures all over
the place, figures cut out, colored engravings nailed up with four
tacks, and portraits of all kinds of persons taken from the
illustrated papers.

Madame Goujet said with a smile that her son was a big baby. He found
that reading in the evening put him to sleep, so he amused himself
looking at pictures. Gervaise spent an hour with her neighbor without
noticing the passing of time. Madame Goujet had gone to sit by the
window and work on her lace. Gervaise was fascinated by the hundreds
of pins that held the lace, and she felt happy to be there, breathing
in the good clean atmosphere of this home where such a delicate task
enforced a sort of meditative silence.

The Goujets were worth visiting. They worked long hours, and placed
more than a quarter of their fortnight's earnings in the savings-bank.
In the neighborhood everyone nodded to them, everyone talked of their
savings. Goujet never had a hole in his clothes, always went out in a
clean short blue blouse, without a stain. He was very polite, and even
a trifle timid, in spite of his broad shoulders. The washerwomen at
the end of the street laughed to see him hold down his head when he
passed them. He did not like their oaths, and thought it disgusting
that women should be constantly uttering foul words. One day, however,
he came home tipsy. Then Madame Goujet, for sole reproach, held his
father's portrait before him, a daub of a painting hidden away at the
bottom of a drawer; and, ever since that lesson, Goujet never drank
more than was good for him, without however, any hatred of wine, for
wine is necessary to the workman. On Sundays he walked out with his
mother, who took hold of his arm. He would generally conduct her to
Vincennes; at other times they would go to the theatre. His mother
remained his passion. He still spoke to her as though he were a little
child. Square-headed, his skin toughened by the wielding of the heavy
hammer, he somewhat resembled the larger animals: dull of intellect,
though good-natured all the same.

In the early days of their acquaintance, Gervaise embarrassed him
immensely. Then in a few weeks he became accustomed to her. He watched
for her that he might carry up her parcels, treated her as a sister,
with an abrupt familiarity, and cut out pictures for her. One morning,
however, having opened her door without knocking, he beheld her half
undressed, washing her neck; and, for a week, he did not dare to look
her in the face, so much so that he ended by making her blush herself.

Young Cassis, with the casual wit of a born Parisian, called Golden
Mouth a dolt. It was all right not to get drunk all the time or chase
women, but still, a man must be a man, or else he might as well wear
skirts. Coupeau teased him in front of Gervaise, accusing him of
making up to all the women in the neighborhood. Goujet vigorously
defended himself against the charge.

But this didn't prevent the two workingmen from becoming best of
friends. They went off to work together in the mornings and sometimes
had a glass of beer together on the way home.

It eventually came about that Golden Mouth could render a service to
Young Cassis, one of those favors that is remembered forever.

It was the second of December. The zinc-worker decided, just for the
fun of it, to go into the city and watch the rioting. He didn't really
care about the Republic, or Napoleon or anything like that, but he
liked the smell of gunpowder and the sound of the rifles firing. He
would have been arrested as a rioter if the blacksmith hadn't turned
up at the barricade at just that moment and helped him escape. Goujet
was very serious as they walked back up the Rue du Faubourg
Poissonniere. He was interested in politics and believed in the
Republic. But he had never fired a gun because the common people were
getting tired of fighting battles for the middle classes who always
seemed to get the benefit of them.

As they reached the top of the slope of the Rue du Faubourg
Poissonniere, Goujet turned to look back at Paris and the mobs. After
all, some day people would be sorry that they just stood by and did
nothing. Coupeau laughed at this, saying you would be pretty stupid to
risk your neck just to preserve the twenty-five francs a day for the
lazybones in the Legislative Assembly. That evening the Coupeaus
invited the Goujets to dinner. After desert Young Cassis and Golden
Mouth kissed each other on the cheek. Their lives were joined till
death.

For three years the existence of the two families went on, on either
side of the landing, without an event. Gervaise was able to take care
of her daughter and still work most of the week. She was now a skilled
worker on fine laundry and earned up to three francs a day. She
decided to put Etienne, now nearly eight, into a small boarding-school
on Rue de Chartres for five francs a week. Despite the expenses for
the two children, they were able to save twenty or thirty francs each
month. Once they had six hundred francs saved, Gervaise often lay
awake thinking of her ambitious dream: she wanted to rent a small
shop, hire workers, and go into the laundry business herself. If this
effort worked, they would have a steady income from savings in twenty
years. They could retire and live in the country.

Yet she hesitated, saying she was looking for the right shop. She was
giving herself time to think it over. Their savings were safe in the
bank, and growing larger. So, in three years' time she had only
fulfilled one of her dreams--she had bought a clock. But even this
clock, made of rosewood with twined columns and a pendulum of gilded
brass, was being paid for in installments of twenty-two sous each
Monday for a year. She got upset if Coupeau tried to wind it; she
liked to be the only one to lift off the glass dome. It was under the
glass dome, behind the clock, that she hid her bank book. Sometimes,
when she was dreaming of her shop, she would stare fixedly at the
clock, lost in thought.

The Coupeaus went out nearly every Sunday with the Goujets. They were
pleasant little excursions, sometimes to have some fried fish at
Saint-Ouen, at others a rabbit at Vincennes, in the garden of some
eating-house keeper without any grand display. The men drank
sufficient to quench their thirst, and returned home as right as nine-
pins, giving their arms to the ladies. In the evening before going to
bed, the two families made up accounts and each paid half the
expenses; and there was never the least quarrel about a sou more or
less.

The Lorilleuxs became jealous of the Goujets. It seemed strange to
them to see Young Cassis and Clump-clump going places all the time
with strangers instead of their own relations. But, that's the way it
was; some folks didn't care a bit about their family. Now that they
had saved a few sous, they thought they were really somebody. Madame
Lorilleux was much annoyed to see her brother getting away from her
influence and begin to continually run down Gervaise to everyone. On
the other hand, Madame Lerat took the young wife's side. Mother
Coupeau tried to get along with everybody. She only wanted to be
welcomed by all three of her children. Now that her eyesight was
getting dimmer and dimmer she only had one regular house cleaning job
but she was able to pick up some small jobs now and again.

On the day on which Nana was three years old, Coupeau, on returning
home in the evening, found Gervaise quite upset. She refused to talk
about it; there was nothing at all the matter with her, she said. But,
as she had the table all wrong, standing still with the plates in her
hands, absorbed in deep reflection, her husband insisted upon knowing
what was the matter.

"Well, it is this," she ended by saying, "the little draper's shop in
the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, is to let. I saw it only an hour ago, when
going to buy some cotton. It gave me quite a turn."

It was a very decent shop, and in that big house where they dreamed of
living in former days. There was the shop, a back room, and two other
rooms to the right and left; in short, just what they required. The
rooms were rather small, but well placed. Only, she considered they
wanted too much; the landlord talked of five hundred francs.

"So you've been over the place, and asked the price?" said Coupeau.

"Oh! you know, only out of curiosity!" replied she, affecting an air
of indifference. "One looks about, and goes in wherever there's a bill
up--that doesn't bind one to anything. But that shop is altogether too
dear. Besides, it would perhaps be foolish of me to set up in
business."

However, after dinner, she again referred to the draper's shop. She
drew a plan of the place on the margin of a newspaper. And, little by
little, she talked it over, measuring the corners, and arranging the
rooms, as though she were going to move all her furniture in there on
the morrow. Then Coupeau advised her to take it, seeing how she wanted
to do so; she would certainly never find anything decent under five
hundred francs; besides they might perhaps get a reduction. He knew
only one objection to it and that was living in the same house as the
Lorilleux, whom she could not bear.

Gervaise declared that she wasn't mad at anybody. So much did she want
her own shop that she even spoke up for the Lorilleuxs, saying that
they weren't mean at heart and that she would be able to get along
just fine with them. When they went to bed, Coupeau fell asleep
immediately, but she stayed awake, planning how she could arrange the
new place even though she hadn't yet made up her mind completely.

On the morrow, when she was alone, she could not resist removing the
glass cover from the clock, and taking a peep at the savings-bank
book. To think that her shop was there, in those dirty pages, covered
with ugly writing! Before going off to her work, she consulted Madame
Goujet, who highly approved her project of setting up in business for
herself; with a husband like hers, a good fellow who did not drink,
she was certain of getting on, and of not having her earnings
squandered. At the luncheon hour Gervaise even called on the
Lorilleuxs to ask their advice; she did not wish to appear to be doing
anything unknown to the family. Madame Lorilleux was struck all of a
heap. What! Clump-clump was going in for a shop now! And her heart
bursting with envy, she stammered, and tried to pretend to be pleased:
no doubt the shop was a convenient one--Gervaise was right in taking
it. However, when she had somewhat recovered, she and her husband
talked of the dampness of the courtyard, of the poor light of the
rooms on the ground floor. Oh! it was a good place for rheumatism.
Yet, if she had made up her mind to take it, their observations, of
course, would not make her alter her decision.

That evening Gervaise frankly owned with a laugh that she would have
fallen ill if she had been prevented from having the shop.
Nevertheless, before saying "it's done!" she wished to take Coupeau to
see the place, and try and obtain a reduction in the rent.

"Very well, then, to-morrow, if you like," said her husband. "You can
come and fetch me towards six o'clock at the house where I'm working,
in the Rue de la Nation, and we'll call in at the Rue de la Goutte-
d'Or on our way home."

Coupeau was then finishing the roofing of a new three-storied house.
It so happened that on that day he was to fix the last sheets of zinc.
As the roof was almost flat, he had set up his bench on it, a wide
shutter supported on two trestles. A beautiful May sun was setting,
giving a golden hue to the chimney-pots. And, right up at the top,
against the clear sky, the workman was quietly cutting up his zinc
with a big pair of shears, leaning over the bench, and looking like a
tailor in his shop cutting out a pair of trousers. Close to the wall
of the next house, his boy, a youngster of seventeen, thin and fair,
was keeping the fire of the chafing dish blazing by the aid of an
enormous pair of bellows, each puff of which raised a cloud of sparks.

"Hi! Zidore, put in the irons!" cried Coupeau.

The boy stuck the soldering irons into the midst of the charcoal,
which looked a pale rose color in the daylight. Then he resumed
blowing. Coupeau held the last sheet of zinc. It had to be placed at
the edge of the roof, close to the gutter-pipe; there was an abrupt
slant there, and the gaping void of the street opened beneath. The
zinc-worker, just as though in his own home, wearing his list-shoes,
advanced, dragging his feet, and whistling the air, "Oh! the little
lambs." Arrived in front of the opening, he let himself down, and
then, supporting himself with one knee against the masonry of a
chimney-stack, remained half-way out over the pavement below. One of
his legs dangled. When he leant back to call that young viper, Zidore,
he held on to a corner of the masonry, on account of the street
beneath him.

"You confounded dawdler! Give me the irons! It's no use looking up in
the air, you skinny beggar! The larks won't tumble into your mouth
already cooked!"

But Zidore did not hurry himself. He was interested in the neighboring
roofs, and in a cloud of smoke which rose from the other side of
Paris, close to Grenelle; it was very likely a fire. However, he came
and laid down on his stomach, his head over the opening, and he passed
the irons to Coupeau. Then the latter commenced to solder the sheet.
He squatted, he stretched, always managing to balance himself,
sometimes seated on one side, at other times standing on the tip of
one foot, often only holding on by a finger. He had a confounded
assurance, the devil's own cheek, familiar with danger, and braving
it. It knew him. It was the street that was afraid, not he. As he kept
his pipe in his mouth, he turned round every now and then to spit onto
the pavement.

"Look, there's Madame Boche," he suddenly exclaimed and called down to
her. "Hi! Madame Boche."

He had just caught sight of the concierge crossing the road. She
raised her head and recognised him, and a conversation ensured between
them. She hid her hands under her apron, her nose elevated in the air.
He, standing up now, his left arm passed round a chimney-pot, leant
over.

"Have you seen my wife?" asked he.

"No, I haven't," replied the concierge. "Is she around here?"

"She's coming to fetch me. And are they all well at home?"

"Why, yes, thanks; I'm the most ill, as you see. I'm going to the
Chaussee Clignancourt to buy a small leg of mutton. The butcher near
the Moulin-Rouge only charges sixteen sous."

They raised their voices, because a vehicle was passing. In the wide,
deserted Rue de la Nation, their words, shouted out with all their
might, had only caused a little old woman to come to her window; and
this little old woman remained there leaning out, giving herself the
treat of a grand emotion by watching that man on the roof over the
way, as though she expected to see him fall, from one minute to
another.

"Well! Good evening," cried Madame Boche. "I won't disturb you."

Coupeau turned round, and took back the iron that Zidore was holding
for him. But just as the concierge was moving off, she caught sight of
Gervaise on the other side of the way, holding Nana by the hand. She
was already raising her head to tell the zinc-worker, when the young
woman closed her mouth by an energetic gesture, and, in a low voice,
so as not to be heard up there, she told her of her fear: she was
afraid, by showing herself suddenly, of giving her husband a shock
which might make him lose his balance. During the four years, she had
only been once to fetch him at his work. That day was the second time.
She could not witness it, her blood turned cold when she beheld her
old man between heaven and earth, in places where even the sparrows
would not venture.

"No doubt, it's not pleasant," murmured Madame Boche. "My husband's a
tailor, so I have none of these terrors."

"If you only knew, in the early days," said Gervaise again, "I had
frights from morning till night. I was always seeing him on a
stretcher, with his head smashed. Now, I don't think of it so much.
One gets used to everything. Bread must be earned. All the same, it's
a precious dear loaf, for one risks one's bones more than is fair."

And she left off speaking, hiding Nana in her skirt, fearing a cry
from the little one. Very pale, she looked up in spite of herself. At
that moment Coupeau was soldering the extreme edge of the sheet close
to the gutter; he slid down as far as possible, but without being able
to reach the edge. Then, he risked himself with those slow movements
peculiar to workmen. For an instant he was immediately over the
pavement, no long holding on, all absorbed in his work; and, from
below, one could see the little white flame of the solder frizzling up
beneath the carefully wielded iron. Gervaise, speechless, her throat
contracted with anguish, had clasped her hands together, and held them
up in mechanical gesture of prayer. But she breathed freely as Coupeau
got up and returned back along the roof, without hurrying himself, and
taking the time to spit once more into the street.

"Ah! ah! so you've been playing the spy on me!" cried he, gaily, on
beholding her. "She's been making a stupid of herself, eh, Madame
Boche? She wouldn't call to me. Wait a bit, I shall have finished in
ten minutes."

All that remained to do was to fix the top of the chimney--a mere
nothing. The laundress and the concierge waited on the pavement,
discussing the neighborhood, and giving an eye to Nana, to prevent her
from dabbling in the gutter, where she wanted to look for little
fishes; and the two women kept glancing up at the roof, smiling and
nodding their heads, as though to imply that they were not losing
patience. The old woman opposite had not left her window, had
continued watching the man, and waiting.

"Whatever can she have to look at, that old she-goat?" said Madame
Boche. "What a mug she has!"

One could hear the loud voice of the zinc-worker up above singing,
"Ah! it's nice to gather strawberries!" Bending over his bench, he was
now artistically cutting out his zinc. With his compasses he traced a
line, and he detached a large fan-shaped piece with the aid of a pair
of curved shears; then he lightly bent this fan with his hammer into
the form of a pointed mushroom. Zidore was again blowing the charcoal
in the chafing-dish. The sun was setting behind the house in a
brilliant rosy light, which was gradually becoming paler, and turning
to a delicate lilac. And, at this quiet hour of the day, right up
against the sky, the silhouettes of the two workmen, looking
inordinately large, with the dark line of the bench, and the strange
profile of the bellows, stood out from the limpid back-ground of the
atmosphere.

When the chimney-top was got into shape, Coupeau called out: "Zidore!
The irons!"

But Zidore had disappeared. The zinc-worker swore, and looked about
for him, even calling him through the open skylight of the loft. At
length he discovered him on a neighboring roof, two houses off. The
young rogue was taking a walk, exploring the environs, his fair scanty
locks blowing in the breeze, his eyes blinking as they beheld the
immensity of Paris.

"I say, lazy bones! Do you think you're having a day in the country?"
asked Coupeau, in a rage. "You're like Monsieur Beranger, composing
verses, perhaps! Will you give me those irons! Did any one ever see
such a thing! Strolling about on the house-tops! Why not bring your
sweetheart at once, and tell her of your love? Will you give me those
irons? You confounded little shirker!"

He finished his soldering, and called to Gervaise: "There, it's done.
I'm coming down."

The chimney-pot to which he had to fix the flue was in the middle of
the roof. Gervaise, who was no longer uneasy, continued to smile as
she followed his movements. Nana, amused all on a sudden by the view
of her father, clapped her little hands. She had seated herself on the
pavement to see the better up there.

"Papa! Papa!" called she with all her might. "Papa! Just look!"

The zinc-worker wished to lean forward, but his foot slipped. Then
suddenly, stupidly, like a cat with its legs entangled, he rolled and
descended the slight slope of the roof without being able to grab hold
of anything.

"/Mon Dieu/," he cried in a choked voice.

And he fell. His body described a gentle curve, turned twice over on
itself, and came smashing into the middle of the street with the dull
thud of a bundle of clothes thrown from on high.

Gervaise, stupefied, her throat rent by one great cry, stood holding
up her arms. Some passers-by hastened to the spot; a crowd soon
formed. Madame Boche, utterly upset, her knees bending under her, took
Nana in her arms, to hide her head and prevent her seeing. Meanwhile,
the little old woman opposite quietly closed her window, as though
satisfied.

Four men ended by carrying Coupeau into a chemist's, at the corner of
the Rue des Poissonniers; and he remained there on a blanket, in the
middle of the shop, whist they sent to the Lariboisiere Hospital for a
stretcher. He was still breathing.

Gervaise, sobbing, was kneeling on the floor beside him, her face
smudged with tears, stunned and unseeing. Her hands would reach to
feel her husband's limbs with the utmost gentleness. Then she would
draw back as she had been warned not to touch him. But a few seconds
later she would touch him to assure herself that he was still warm,
feeling somehow that she was helping him.

When the stretcher at length arrived, and they talked of starting for
the hospital, she got up, saying violently:

"No, no, not to the hospital! We live in the Rue Neuve de la Goutte-
d'Or."

It was useless for them to explain to her that the illness would cost
her a great deal of money, if she took her husband home. She
obstinately repeated:

"Rue Neuve de la Goutte-d'Or; I will show you the house. What can it
matter to you? I've got money. He's my husband, isn't he? He's mine,
and I want him at home."

And they had to take Coupeau to his own home. When the stretcher was
carried through the crowd which was crushing up against the chemist's
shop, the women of the neighborhood were excitedly talking of
Gervaise. She limped, the dolt, but all the same she had some pluck.
She would be sure to save her old man; whilst at the hospital the
doctors let the patients die who were very bad, so as not to have the
bother of trying to cure them. Madame Boche, after taking Nana home
with her, returned, and gave her account of the accident, with
interminable details, and still feeling agitated with the emotion she
had passed through.

"I was going to buy a leg of mutton; I was there, I saw him fall,"
repeated she. "It was all through the little one; he turned to look at
her, and bang! Ah! good heavens! I never want to see such a sight
again. However, I must be off to get my leg of mutton."

For a week Coupeau was very bad. The family, the neighbors, everyone,
expected to see him turn for the worse at any moment. The doctor--a
very expensive doctor, who charged five francs for each visit--
apprehended internal injuries, and these words filled everyone with
fear. It was said in the neighborhood that the zinc-worker's heart had
been injured by the shock. Gervaise alone, looking pale through her
nights of watching, serious and resolute, shrugged her shoulders. Her
old man's right leg was broken, everyone knew that; it would be set
for him, and that was all. As for the rest, the injured heart, that
was nothing. She knew how to restore a heart with ceaseless care. She
was certain of getting him well and displayed magnificent faith. She
stayed close by him and caressed him gently during the long bouts of
fever without a moment of doubt. She was on her feet continuously for
a whole week, completely absorbed by her determination to save him.
She forgot the street outside, the entire city, and even her own
children. On the ninth day, the doctor finally said that Coupeau would
live. Gervaise collapsed into a chair, her body limp from fatigue.
That night she consented to sleep for two hours with her head against
the foot of the bed.

Coupeau's accident had created quite a commotion in the family. Mother
Coupeau passed the nights with Gervaise; but as early as nine o'clock
she fell asleep on a chair. Every evening, on returning from work,
Madame Lerat went a long round out of her way to inquire how her
brother was getting on. At first the Lorilleuxs had called two or
three times a day, offering to sit up and watch, and even bringing an
easy-chair for Gervaise. Then it was not long before there were
disputes as to the proper way to nurse invalids. Madame Lorilleux said
that she had saved enough people's lives to know how to go about it.
She accused the young wife of pushing her aside, of driving her away
from her own brother's bed. Certainly that Clump-clump ought to be
concerned about Coupeau's getting well, for if she hadn't gone to Rue
de la Nation to disturb him at his job, he would never had fallen.
Only, the way she was taking care of him, she would certainly finish
him.

When Gervaise saw that Coupeau was out of danger, she ceased guarding
his bedside with so much jealous fierceness. Now, they could no longer
kill him, and she let people approach without mistrust. The family
invaded the room. The convalescence would be a very long one; the
doctor had talked of four months. Then, during the long hours the
zinc-worker slept, the Lorilleux talked of Gervaise as of a fool. She
hadn't done any good by having her husband at home. At the hospital
they would have cured him twice as quickly. Lorilleux would have liked
to have been ill, to have caught no matter what, just to show her that
he did not hesitate for a moment to go to Lariboisiere. Madame
Lorilleux knew a lady who had just come from there. Well! She had had
chicken to eat morning and night.

Again and again the two of them went over their estimate of how much
four months of convalescence would cost; workdays lost, the doctor and
the medicines, and afterward good wine and fresh meat. If the Coupeaus
only used up their small savings, they would be very lucky indeed.
They would probably have to do into debt. Well, that was to be
expected and it was their business. They had no right to expect any
help from the family, which couldn't afford the luxury of keeping an
invalid at home. It was just Clump-clump's bad luck, wasn't it? Why
couldn't she have done as others did and let her man be taken to
hospital? This just showed how stuck up she was.

One evening Madame Lorilleux had the spitefulness to ask Gervaise
suddenly:

"Well! And your shop, when are you going to take it?"

"Yes," chuckled Lorilleux, "the landlord's still waiting for you."

Gervaise was astonished. She had completely forgotten the shop; but
she saw the wicked joy of those people, at the thought that she would
no longer be able to take it, and she was bursting with anger. From
that evening, in fact, they watched for every opportunity to twit her
about her hopeless dream. When any one spoke of some impossible wish,
they would say that it might be realized on the day that Gervaise
started in business, in a beautiful shop opening onto the street. And
behind her back they would laugh fit to split their sides. She did not
like to think such an unkind thing, but, really, the Lorilleuxs now
seemed to be very pleased at Coupeau's accident, as it prevented her
setting up as a laundress in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or.

Then she also wished to laugh, and show them how willingly she parted
with the money for the sake of curing her husband. Each time she took
the savings-bank book from beneath the glass clock-tower in their
presence, she would say gaily:

"I'm going out; I'm going to rent my shop."

She had not been willing to withdraw the money all at once. She took
it out a hundred francs at a time, so as not to keep such a pile of
gold and silver in her drawer; then, too, she vaguely hoped for some
miracle, some sudden recovery, which would enable them not to part
with the entire sum. At each journey to the savings-bank, on her
return home, she added up on a piece of paper the money they had still
left there. It was merely for the sake of order. Their bank account
might be getting smaller all the time, yet she went on with her quiet
smile and common-sense attitude, keeping the account straight. It was
a consolation to be able to use this money for such a good purpose, to
have had it when faced with their misfortune.

While Coupeau was bed-ridden the Goujets were very kind to Gervaise.
Madame Goujet was always ready to assist. She never went to shop
without stopping to ask Gervaise if there was anything she needed,
sugar or butter or salt. She always brought over hot bouillon on the
evenings she cooked /pot au feu/. Sometimes, when Gervaise seemed to
have too much to do, Madame Goujet helped her do the dishes, or
cleaned the kitchen herself. Goujet took her water pails every morning
and filled them at the tap on Rue des Poissonniers, saving her two
sous a day. After dinner, if no family came to visit, the Goujets
would come over to visit with the Coupeaus.

Until ten o'clock, the blacksmith would smoke his pipe and watch
Gervaise busy with her invalid. He would not speak ten words the
entire evening. He was moved to pity by the sight of her pouring
Coupeau's tea and medicine into a cup, or stirring the sugar in it
very carefully so as to make no sound with the spoon. It stirred him
deeply when she would lean over Coupeau and speak in her soft voice.
Never before had he known such a fine woman. Her limp increased the
credit due her for wearing herself out doing things for her husband
all day long. She never sat down for ten minutes, not even to eat. She
was always running to the chemist's. And then she would still keep the
house clean, not even a speck of dust. She never complained, no matter
how exhausted she became. Goujet developed a very deep affection for
Gervaise in this atmosphere of unselfish devotion.

One day he said to the invalid, "Well, old man, now you're patched up
again! I wasn't worried about you. Your wife works miracles."

Goujet was supposed to be getting married. His mother had found a
suitable girl, a lace-mender like herself, whom she was urging him to
marry. He had agreed so as not to hurt her feelings and the wedding
had been set for early September. Money had long since been saved to
set them up in housekeeping. However, when Gervaise referred to his
coming marriage, he shook his head, saying, "Not every woman is like
you, Madame Coupeau. If all women were like you, I'd marry ten of
them."

At the end of two months, Coupeau was able to get up. He did not go
far, only from the bed to the window, and even then Gervaise had to
support him. There he would sit down in the easy-chair the Lorilleuxs
had brought, with his right leg stretched out on a stool. This joker,
who used to laugh at the people who slipped down on frosty days, felt
greatly put out by his accident. He had no philosophy. He had spent
those two months in bed, in cursing, and in worrying the people about
him. It was not an existence, really, to pass one's life on one's
back, with a pin all tied up and as stiff as a sausage. Ah, he
certainly knew the ceiling by heart; there was a crack, at the corner
of the alcove, that he could have drawn with his eyes shut. Then, when
he was made comfortable in the easy-chair, it was another grievance.
Would he be fixed there for long, just like a mummy?

Nobody ever passed along the street, so it was no fun to watch.
Besides, it stank of bleach water all day. No, he was just growing
old; he'd have given ten years of his life just to go see how the
fortifications were getting along. He kept going on about his fate. It
wasn't right, what had happened to him. A good worker like him, not a
loafer or a drunkard, he could have understood in that case.

"Papa Coupeau," said he, "broke his neck one day that he'd been
boozing. I can't say that it was deserved, but anyhow it was
explainable. I had had nothing since my lunch, was perfectly quiet,
and without a drop of liquor in my body; and yet I came to grief just
because I wanted to turn round to smile at Nana! Don't you think
that's too much? If there is a providence, it certainly arranges
things in a very peculiar manner. I, for one, shall never believe in
it."

And when at last he was able to use his legs, he retained a secret
grudge against work. It was a handicraft full of misfortunes to pass
one's days, like the cats, on the roofs of the houses. The employers
were no fools! They sent you to your death--being far too cowardly to
venture themselves on a ladder--and stopped at home in safety at their
fire-sides without caring a hang for the poorer classes; and he got to
the point of saying that everyone ought to fix the zinc himself on
his own house. /Mon Dieu/! It was the only fair way to do it! If you
don't want the rain to come in, do the work yourself. He regretted he
hadn't learned another trade, something more pleasant, something less
dangerous, maybe cabinetmaking. It was really his father's fault. Lots
of fathers have the foolish habit of shoving their sons into their own
line of work.

For another two months Coupeau hobbled about on crutches. He had first
of all managed to get as far as the street, and smoke his pipe in
front of the door. Then he had managed to reach the exterior
Boulevard, dragging himself along in the sunshine, and remaining for
hours on one of the seats. Gaiety returned to him; his infernal tongue
got sharper in these long hours of idleness. And with the pleasure of
living, he gained there a delight in doing nothing, an indolent
feeling took possession of his limbs, and his muscles gradually glided
into a very sweet slumber. It was the slow victory of laziness, which
took advantage of his convalescence to obtain possession of his body
and unnerve him with its tickling. He regained his health, as thorough
a banterer as before, thinking life beautiful, and not seeing why it
should not last for ever.

As soon as he could get about without the crutches, he made longer
walks, often visiting construction jobs to see old comrades. He would
stand with his arms folded, sneering and shaking his head, ridiculing
the workers slaving at the job, stretching out his leg to show them
what you got for wearing yourself out. Being able to stand about and
mock others while they were working satisfied his spite against hard
work. No doubt he'd have to go back to it, but he'd put it off as long
as possible. He had a reason now to be lazy. Besides, it seemed good
to him to loaf around like a bum!

On the afternoons when Coupeau felt dull, he would call on the
Lorilleuxs. The latter would pity him immensely, and attract him with
all sorts of amiable attentions. During the first years following his
marriage, he had avoided them, thanks to Gervaise's influence. Now
they regained their sway over him by twitting him about being afraid
of his wife. He was no man, that was evident! The Lorilleuxs, however,
showed great discretion, and were loud in their praise of the
laundress's good qualities. Coupeau, without as yet coming to
wrangling, swore to the latter that his sister adored her, and
requested that she would behave more amiably to her. The first quarrel
which the couple had occurred one evening on account of Etienne. The
zinc-worker had passed the afternoon with the Lorilleuxs. On arriving
home, as the dinner was not quite ready, and the children were whining
for their soup, he suddenly turned upon Etienne, and boxed his ears
soundly. And during an hour he did not cease to grumble; the brat was
not his; he did not know why he allowed him to be in the place; he
would end by turning him out into the street. Up till then he had
tolerated the youngster without all that fuss. On the morrow he talked
of his dignity. Three days after, he kept kicking the little fellow,
morning and evening, so much so that the child, whenever he heard him
coming, bolted into the Goujets' where the old lace-mender kept a
corner of the table clear for him to do his lessons.

Gervaise had for some time past, returned to work. She no longer had
the trouble of looking under the glass cover of the clock; all the
savings were gone; and she had to work hard, work for four, for there
were four to feed now. She alone maintained them. Whenever she heard
people pitying her, she at once found excuses for Coupeau. Recollect!
He had suffered so much; it was not surprising if his disposition had
soured! But it would pass off when his health returned. And if any one
hinted that Coupeau seemed all right again, that he could very well
return to work, she protested: No, no; not yet! She did not want to
see him take to his bed again. They would allow her to know best what
the doctor said, perhaps! It was she who prevented him returning to
work, telling him every morning to take his time and not to force
himself. She even slipped twenty sou pieces into his waistcoat pocket.
Coupeau accepted this as something perfectly natural. He was always
complaining of aches and pains so that she would coddle him. At the
end of six months he was still convalescing.

Now, whenever he went to watch others working, he was always ready to
join his comrades in downing a shot. It wasn't so bad, after all. They
had their fun, and they never stayed more than five minutes. That
couldn't hurt anybody. Only a hypocrite would say he went in because
he wanted a drink. No wonder they had laughed at him in the past. A
glass of wine never hurt anybody. He only drank wine though, never
brandy. Wine never made you sick, didn't get you drunk, and helped you
to live longer. Soon though, several times, after a day of idleness in
going from one building job to another, he came home half drunk. On
those occasions Gervaise pretended to have a terrible headache and
kept their door closed so that the Goujets wouldn't hear Coupeau's
drunken babblings.

Little by little, the young woman lost her cheerfulness. Morning and
evening she went to the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or to look at the shop,
which was still to be let; and she would hide herself as though she
were committing some childish prank unworthy of a grown-up person.
This shop was beginning to turn her brain. At night-time, when the
light was out she experienced the charm of some forbidden pleasure by
thinking of it with her eyes open. She again made her calculations;
two hundred and fifty francs for the rent, one hundred and fifty
francs for utensils and moving, one hundred francs in hand to keep
them going for a fortnight--in all five hundred francs at the very
lowest figure. If she was not continually thinking of it aloud, it was
for fear she should be suspected of regretting the savings swallowed
up by Coupeau's illness. She often became quite pale, having almost
allowed her desire to escape her and catching back her words, quite
confused as though she had been thinking of something wicked. Now they
would have to work for four or five years before they would succeed in
saving such a sum. Her regret was at not being able to start in
business at once; she would have earned all the home required, without
counting on Coupeau, letting him take months to get into the way of
work again; she would no longer have been uneasy, but certain of the
future and free from the secret fears which sometimes seized her when
he returned home very gay and singing, and relating some joke of that
animal My-Boots, whom he had treated to a drink.

One evening, Gervaise being at home alone, Goujet entered, and did not
hurry off again, according to his habit. He seated himself, and smoked
as he watched her. He probably had something very serious to say; he
thought it over, let it ripen without being able to put it into
suitable words. At length, after a long silence, he appeared to make
up his mind, and took his pipe out of his mouth to say all in a
breath:

"Madame Gervaise, will you allow me to lend you some money?"

She was leaning over an open drawer, looking for some dish-cloths. She
got up, her face very red. He must have seen her then, in the morning,
standing in ecstacy before the shop for close upon ten minutes. He was
smiling in an embarrassed way, as though he had made some insulting
proposal. But she hastily refused. Never would she accept money from
any one without knowing when she would be able to return it. Then also
it was a question of too large an amount. And as he insisted, in a
frightened manner, she ended by exclaiming:

"But your marriage? I certainly can't take the money you've been
saving for your marriage!"

"Oh, don't let that bother you," he replied, turning red in his turn.
"I'm not going to be married now. That was just an idea, you know.
Really, I would much sooner lend you the money."

Then they both held down their heads. There was something very
pleasant between them to which they did not give expression. And
Gervaise accepted. Goujet had told his mother. They crossed the
landing, and went to see her at once. The lace-mender was very grave,
and looked rather sad as she bent her face over her tambour-frame. She
would not thwart her son, but she no longer approved Gervaise's
project; and she plainly told her why. Coupeau was going to the bad;
Coupeau would swallow up her shop. She especially could not forgive
the zinc-worker for having refused to learn to read during his
convalescence. The blacksmith had offered to teach him, but the other
had sent him to the right about, saying that learning made people get
thin. This had almost caused a quarrel between the two workmen; each
went his own way. Madame Goujet, however, seeing her big boy's
beseeching glances, behaved very kindly to Gervaise. It was settled
that they would lend their neighbors five hundred francs; the latter
were to repay the amount by installments of twenty francs a month; it
would last as long as it lasted.

"I say, the blacksmith's sweet on you," exclaimed Coupeau, laughing,
when he heard what had taken place. "Oh, I'm quite easy; he's too big
a muff. We'll pay him back his money. But, really, if he had to deal
with some people, he'd find himself pretty well duped."

On the morrow the Coupeaus took the shop. All day long, Gervaise was
running from Rue Neuve de la Goutte-d'Or. When the neighbors beheld
her pass thus, nimble and delighted to the extent that she no longer
limped, they said she must have undergone some operation.



                              CHAPTER V.

It so happened that the Boches had left the Rue des Poissonniers at
the April quarter, and were now taking charge of the great house in
the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. It was a curious coincidence, all the same!
One thing that worried Gervaise who had lived so quietly in her
lodgings in the Rue Neuve, was the thought of again being under the
subjection of some unpleasant person, with whom she would be
continually quarrelling, either on account of water spilt in the
passage or of a door shut too noisily at night-time. Concierges are
such a disagreeable class! But it would be a pleasure to be with the
Boches. They knew one another--they would always get on well together.
It would be just like members of the same family.

On the day the Coupeaus went to sign their lease, Gervaise felt her
heart swollen with pride as she passed through the high doorway. She
was then at length going to live in that house as vast as a little
town, with its interminable staircases, and passages as long and
winding as streets. She was excited by everything: the gray walls with
varicolored rugs hanging from windows to dry in the sun, the dingy
courtyard with as many holes in its pavement as a public square, the
hum of activity coming through the walls. She felt joy that she was at
last about to realize her ambition. She also felt fear that she would
fail and be crushed in the endless struggle against the poverty and
starvation she could feel breathing down her neck. It seemed to her
that she was doing something very bold, throwing herself into the
midst of some machinery in motion, as she listened to the blacksmith's
hammers and the cabinetmakers' planes, hammering and hissing in the
depths of the work-shops on the ground floor. On that day the water
flowing from the dyer's under the entrance porch was a very pale apple
green. She smilingly stepped over it; to her the color was a pleasant
omen.

The meeting with the landlord was to take place in the Boches' room.
Monsieur Marescot, a wealthy cutler of the Rue de la Paix, had at one
time turned a grindstone through the streets. He was now stated to be
worth several millions. He was a man of fifty-five, large and big-
boned. Even though he now wore a decoration in his button-hole, his
huge hands were still those of a former workingman. It was his joy to
carry off the scissors and knives of his tenants, to sharpen them
himself, for the fun of it. He often stayed for hours with his
concierges, closed up in the darkness of their lodges, going over the
accounts. That's where he did all his business. He was now seated by
Madame Boche's kitchen table, listening to her story of how the
dressmaker on the third floor, staircase A, had used a filthy word in
refusing to pay her rent. He had had to work precious hard once upon a
time. But work was the high road to everything. And, after counting
the two hundred and fifty francs for the first two quarters in
advance, and dropping them into his capacious pocket, he related the
story of his life, and showed his decoration.

Gervaise, however, felt rather ill at ease on account of the Boches'
behavior. They pretended not to know her. They were most assiduous in
their attentions to the landlord, bowing down before him, watching for
his least words, and nodding their approval of them. Madame Boche
suddenly ran out and dispersed a group of children who were paddling
about in front of the cistern, the tap of which they had turned full
on, causing the water to flow over the pavement; and when she
returned, upright and severe in her skirts, crossing the courtyard and
glancing slowly up at all the windows, as though to assure herself of
the good behavior of the household, she pursed her lips in a way to
show with what authority she was invested, now that she reigned over
three hundred tenants. Boche again spoke of the dressmaker on the
second floor; he advised that she should be turned out; he reckoned up
the number of quarters she owed with the importance of a steward whose
management might be compromised. Monsieur Marescot approved the
suggestion of turning her out, but he wished to wait till the half
quarter. It was hard to turn people out into the street, more
especially as it did not put a sou into the landlord's pocket. And
Gervaise asked herself with a shudder if she too would be turned out
into the street the day that some misfortune rendered her unable to
pay.

The concierge's lodge was as dismal as a cellar, black from smoke and
crowded with dark furniture. All the sunlight fell upon the tailor's
workbench by the window. An old frock coat that was being reworked lay
on it. The Boches' only child, a four-year-old redhead named Pauline,
was sitting on the floor, staring quietly at the veal simmering on the
stove, delighted with the sharp odor of cooking that came from the
frying pan.

Monsieur Marescot again held out his hand to the zinc-worker, when the
latter spoke of the repairs, recalling to his mind a promise he had
made to talk the matter over later on. But the landlord grew angry, he
had never promised anything; besides, it was not usual to do any
repairs to a shop. However, he consented to go over the place,
followed by the Coupeaus and Boche. The little linen-draper had
carried off all his shelves and counters; the empty shop displayed its
blackened ceiling and its cracked wall, on which hung strips of an old
yellow paper. In the sonorous emptiness of the place, there ensued a
heated discussion. Monsieur Marescot exclaimed that it was the
business of shopkeepers to embellish their shops, for a shopkeeper
might wish to have gold put about everywhere, and he, the landlord,
could not put out gold. Then he related that he had spent more than
twenty thousand francs in fitting up his premises in the Rue de la
Paix. Gervaise, with her woman's obstinacy, kept repeating an argument
which she considered unanswerable. He would repaper a lodging, would
he not? Then, why did he not treat the shop the same as a lodging? She
did not ask him for anything else--only to whitewash the ceiling, and
put some fresh paper on the walls.

Boche, all this while, remained dignified and impenetrable; he turned
about and looked up in the air, without expressing an opinion. Coupeau
winked at him in vain; he affected not to wish to take advantage of
his great influence over the landlord. He ended, however, by making a
slight grimace--a little smile accompanied by a nod of the head. Just
then Monsieur Marescot, exasperated, and seemingly very unhappy, and
clutching his fingers like a miser being despoiled of his gold, was
giving way to Gervaise, promising to do the ceiling and repaper the
shop on condition that she paid for half of the paper. And he hurried
away declining to discuss anything further.

Now that Boche was alone with the Coupeaus, the concierge became quite
talkative and slapped them on the shoulders. Well, well, see what they
had gotten. Without his help, they would never have gotten the
concessions. Didn't they notice how the landlord had looked to him out
of the corner of his eye for advice and how he'd made up his mind
suddenly when he saw Boche smile? He confessed to them confidentially
that he was the real boss of the building. It was he who decided who
got eviction notices and who could become tenants. He collected all
the rents and kept them for a couple of weeks in his bureau drawer.

That evening the Coupeaus, to express their gratitude to the Boches,
sent them two bottles of wine as a present.

The following Monday the workmen started doing up the shop. The
purchasing of the paper turned out especially to be a very big affair.
Gervaise wanted a grey paper with blue flowers, so as to enliven and
brighten the walls. Boche offered to take her to the dealers, so that
she might make her own selection. But the landlord had given him
formal instructions not to go beyond the price of fifteen sous the
piece. They were there an hour. The laundress kept looking in despair
at a very pretty chintz pattern costing eighteen sous the piece, and
thought all the other papers hideous. At length the concierge gave in;
he would arrange the matter, and, if necessary, would make out there
was a piece more used than was really the case. So, on her way home,
Gervaise purchased some tarts for Pauline. She did not like being
behindhand--one always gained by behaving nicely to her.

The shop was to be ready in four days. The workmen were there three
weeks. At first it was arranged that they should merely wash the
paint. But this paint, originally maroon, was so dirty and so sad-
looking, that Gervaise allowed herself to be tempted to have the whole
of the frontage painted a light blue with yellow moldings. Then the
repairs seemed as though they would last for ever. Coupeau, as he was
still not working, arrived early each morning to see how things were
going. Boche left the overcoat or trousers on which he was working to
come and supervise. Both of them would stand and watch with their
hands behind their backs, puffing on their pipes.

The painters were very merry fellows who would often desert their work
to stand in the middle of the shop and join the discussion, shaking
their heads for hours, admiring the work already done. The ceiling had
been whitewashed quickly, but the paint on the walls never seemed to
dry in a hurry.

Around nine o'clock the painters would arrive with their paint pots
which they stuck in a corner. They would look around and then
disappear. Perhaps they went to eat breakfast. Sometimes Coupeau would
take everyone for a drink--Boche, the two painters and any of
Coupeau's friends who were nearby. This meant another afternoon
wasted.

Gervaise's patience was thoroughly exhausted, when, suddenly,
everything was finished in two days, the paint varnished, the paper
hung, and the dirt all cleared away. The workmen had finished it off
as though they were playing, whistling away on their ladders, and
singing loud enough to deafen the whole neighborhood.

The moving in took place at once. During the first few days Gervaise
felt as delighted as a child. Whenever she crossed the road on
returning from some errand, she lingered to smile at her home. From a
distance her shop appeared light and gay with its pale blue signboard,
on which the word "Laundress" was painted in big yellow letters,
amidst the dark row of the other frontages. In the window, closed in
behind by little muslin curtains, and hung on either side with blue
paper to show off the whiteness of the linen, some shirts were
displayed, with some women's caps hanging above them on wires. She
thought her shop looked pretty, being the same color as the heavens.

Inside there was more blue; the paper, in imitation of a Pompadour
chintz, represented a trellis overgrown with morning-glories. A huge
table, taking up two-thirds of the room, was her ironing-table. It was
covered with thick blanketing and draped with a strip of cretonne
patterned with blue flower sprays that hid the trestles beneath.

Gervaise was enchanted with her pretty establishment and would often
seat herself on a stool and sigh with contentment, delighted with all
the new equipment. Her first glance always went to the cast-iron stove
where the irons were heated ten at a time, arranged over the heat on
slanting rests. She would kneel down to look into the stove to make
sure the apprentice had not put in too much coke.

The lodging at the back of the shop was quite decent. The Coupeaus
slept in the first room, where they also did the cooking and took
their meals; a door at the back opened on to the courtyard of the
house. Nana's bed was in the right hand room, which was lighted by a
little round window close to the ceiling. As for Etienne, he shared
the left hand room with the dirty clothes, enormous bundles of which
lay about on the floor. However, there was one disadvantage--the
Coupeaus would not admit it at first--but the damp ran down the walls,
and it was impossible to see clearly in the place after three o'clock
in the afternoon.

In the neighborhood the new shop produced a great sensation. The
Coupeaus were accused of going too fast, and making too much fuss.
They had, in fact, spent the five hundred francs lent by the Goujets
in fitting up the shop and in moving, without keeping sufficient to
live upon for a fortnight, as they had intended doing. The morning
that Gervaise took down her shutters for the first time, she had just
six francs in her purse. But that did not worry her, customers began
to arrive, and things seemed promising. A week later on the Saturday,
before going to bed, she remained two hours making calculations on a
piece of paper, and she awoke Coupeau to tell him, with a bright look
on her face, that there were hundreds and thousands of francs to be
made, if they were only careful.

"Ah, well!" said Madame Lorilleux all over the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or,
"my fool of a brother is seeing some funny things! All that was
wanting was that Clump-clump should go about so haughty. It becomes
her well, doesn't it?"

The Lorilleuxs had declared a feud to the death against Gervaise. To
begin with, they had almost died of rage during the time while the
repairs were being done to the shop. If they caught sight of the
painters from a distance, they would walk on the other side of the
way, and go up to their rooms with their teeth set. A blue shop for
that "nobody," it was enough to discourage all honest, hard-working
people! Besides, the second day after the shop opened the apprentice
happened to throw out a bowl of starch just at the moment when Madame
Lorilleux was passing. The zinc-worker's sister caused a great
commotion in the street, accusing her sister-in-law of insulting her
through her employees. This broke off all relations. Now they only
exchanged terrible glares when they encountered each other.

"Yes, she leads a pretty life!" Madame Lorilleux kept saying. "We all
know where the money came from that she paid for her wretched shop!
She borrowed it from the blacksmith; and he springs from a nice family
too! Didn't the father cut his own throat to save the guillotine the
trouble of doing so? Anyhow, there was something disreputable of that
sort!"

She bluntly accused Gervaise of flirting with Goujet. She lied--she
pretended she had surprised them together one night on a seat on the
exterior Boulevards. The thought of this liaison, of pleasures that
her sister-in-law was no doubt enjoying, exasperated her still more,
because of her own ugly woman's strict sense of propriety. Every day
the same cry came from her heart to her lips.

"What does she have, that wretched cripple, for people to fall in love
with her? Why doesn't any one want me?"

She busied herself in endless gossiping among the neighbors. She told
them the whole story. The day the Coupeaus got married she turned up
her nose at her. Oh, she had a keen nose, she could smell in advance
how it would turn out. Then, Clump-clump pretended to be so sweet,
what a hypocrite! She and her husband had only agreed to be Nana's
godparents for the sake of her brother. What a bundle it had cost,
that fancy christening. If Clump-clump were on her deathbed she
wouldn't give her a glass of water, no matter how much she begged.

She didn't want anything to do with such a shameless baggage. Little
Nana would always be welcome when she came up to see her godparents.
The child couldn't be blamed for her mother's sins. But there was no
use trying to tell Coupeau anything. Any real man in his situation
would have beaten his wife and put a stop to it all. All they wanted
was for him to insist on respect for his family. /Mon Dieu/! If she,
Madame Lorilleux, had acted like that, Coupeau wouldn't be so
complacent. He would have stabbed her for sure with his shears.

The Boches, however, who sternly disapproved of quarrels in their
building, said that the Lorilleuxs were in the wrong. The Lorilleuxs
were no doubt respectable persons, quiet, working the whole day long,
and paying their rent regularly. But, really, jealousy had driven them
mad. And they were mean enough to skin an egg, real misers. They were
so stingy that they'd hide their bottle when any one came in, so as
not to have to offer a glass of wine--not regular people at all.

Gervaise had brought over cassis and soda water one day to drink with
the Boches. When Madame Lorilleux went by, she acted out spitting
before the concierge's door. Well, after that when Madame Boches swept
the corridors on Saturdays, she always left a pile of trash before the
Lorilleuxs' door.

"It isn't to be wondered at!" Madame Lorilleux would exclaim, "Clump-
clump's always stuffing them, the gluttons! Ah! they're all alike; but
they had better not annoy me! I'll complain to the landlord. Only
yesterday I saw that sly old Boche chasing after Madame Gaudron's
skirts. Just fancy! A woman of that age, and who has half a dozen
children, too; it's positively disgusting! If I catch them at anything
of the sort again, I'll tell Madame Boche, and she'll give them both a
hiding. It'll be something to laugh at."

Mother Coupeau continued to visit the two houses, agreeing with
everybody and even managing to get asked oftener to dinner, by
complaisantly listening one night to her daughter and the next night
to her daughter-in-law.

However, Madame Lerat did not go to visit the Coupeaus because she had
argued with Gervaise about a Zouave who had cut the nose of his
mistress with a razor. She was on the side of the Zouave, saying it
was evidence of a great passion, but without explaining further her
thought. Then, she had made Madame Lorilleux even more angry by
telling her that Clump-clump had called her "Cow Tail" in front of
fifteen or twenty people. Yes, that's what the Boches and all the
neighbors called her now, "Cow Tail."

Gervaise remained calm and cheerful among all these goings-on. She
often stood by the door of her shop greeting friends who passed by
with a nod and a smile. It was her pleasure to take a moment between
batches of ironing to enjoy the street and take pride in her own
stretch of sidewalk.

She felt that the Rue de la Goutte d'Or was hers, and the neighboring
streets, and the whole neighborhood. As she stood there, with her
blonde hair slightly damp from the heat of the shop, she would look
left and right, taking in the people, the buildings, and the sky. To
the left Rue de la Goutte d'Or was peaceful and almost empty, like a
country town with women idling in their doorways. While, to the right,
only a short distance away, Rue des Poissonniers had a noisy throng of
people and vehicles.

The stretch of gutter before her own shop became very important in her
mind. It was like a wide river which she longed to see neat and clean.
It was a lively river, colored by the dye shop with the most fanciful
of hues which contrasted with the black mud beside it.

Then there were the shops: a large grocery with a display of dried
fruits protected by mesh nets; a shop selling work clothes which had
white tunics and blue smocks hanging before it with arms that waved at
the slightest breeze. Cats were purring on the counters of the fruit
store and the tripe shop. Madame Vigouroux, the coal dealer next door,
returned her greetings. She was a plump, short woman with bright eyes
in a dark face who was always joking with the men while standing at
her doorway. Her shop was decorated in imitation of a rustic chalet.
The neighbors on the other side were a mother and daughter, the
Cudorges. The umbrella sellers kept their door closed and never came
out to visit.

Gervaise always looked across the road, too, through the wide carriage
entrance of the windowless wall opposite her, at the blacksmith's
forge. The courtyard was cluttered with vans and carts. Inscribed on
the wall was the word "Blacksmith."

At the lower end of the wall between the small shops selling scrap
iron and fried potatoes was a watchmaker. He wore a frock coat and was
always very neat. His cuckoo clocks could be heard in chorus against
the background noise of the street and the blacksmith's rhythmic
clanging.

The neighborhood in general thought Gervaise very nice. There was, it
is true, a good deal of scandal related regarding her; but everyone
admired her large eyes, small mouth and beautiful white teeth. In
short she was a pretty blonde, and had it not been for her crippled
leg she might have ranked amongst the comeliest. She was now in her
twenty-eighth year, and had grown considerably plumper. Her fine
features were becoming puffy, and her gestures were assuming a
pleasant indolence.

At times she occasionally seemed to forget herself on the edge of a
chair, whilst she waited for her iron to heat, smiling vaguely and
with an expression of greedy joy upon her face. She was becoming fond
of good living, everybody said so; but that was not a very grave
fault, but rather the contrary. When one earns sufficient to be able
to buy good food, one would be foolish to eat potato parings. All the
more so as she continued to work very hard, slaving to please her
customers, sitting up late at night after the place was closed,
whenever there was anything urgent.

She was lucky as all her neighbors said; everything prospered with
her. She did the washing for all the house--M. Madinier, Mademoiselle
Remanjou, the Boches. She even secured some of the customers of her
old employer, Madame Fauconnier, Parisian ladies living in the Rue du
Faubourg-Poissonniere. As early as the third week she was obliged to
engage two workwomen, Madame Putois and tall Clemence, the girl who
used to live on the sixth floor; counting her apprentice, that little
squint-eyed Augustine, who was as ugly as a beggar's behind, that made
three persons in her employ. Others would certainly have lost their
heads at such a piece of good fortune. It was excusable for her to
slack a little on Monday after drudging all through the week. Besides,
it was necessary to her. She would have had no courage left, and would
have expected to see the shirts iron themselves, if she had not been
able to dress up in some pretty thing.

Gervaise was always so amiable, meek as a lamb, sweet as sugar. There
wasn't any one she disliked except Madame Lorilleux. While she was
enjoying a good meal and coffee, she could be indulgent and forgive
everybody saying: "We have to forgive each other--don't we?--unless we
want to live like savages." Hadn't all her dreams come true? She
remembered her old dream: to have a job, enough bread to eat and a
corner in which to sleep, to bring up her children, not to be beaten,
and to die in her own bed. She had everything she wanted now and more
than she had ever expected. She laughed, thinking of delaying dying in
her own bed as long as possible.

It was to Coupeau especially that Gervaise behaved nicely. Never an
angry word, never a complaint behind her husband's back. The zinc-
worker had at length resumed work; and as the job he was engaged on
was at the other side of Paris, she gave him every morning forty sous
for his luncheon, his glass of wine and his tobacco. Only, two days
out of every six, Coupeau would stop on the way, spend the forty sous
in drink with a friend, and return home to lunch, with some cock-and-
bull story. Once even he did not take the trouble to go far; he
treated himself, My-Boots and three others to a regular feast--snails,
roast meat, and some sealed bottles of wine--at the "Capuchin," on the
Barriere de la Chapelle. Then, as his forty sous were not sufficient,
he had sent the waiter to his wife with the bill and the information
that he was in pawn. She laughed and shrugged her shoulders. Where was
the harm if her old man amused himself a bit? You must give men a long
rein if you want to live peaceably at home. From one word to another,
one soon arrived at blows. /Mon Dieu/! It was easy to understand.
Coupeau still suffered from his leg; besides, he was led astray. He
was obliged to do as the others did, or else he would be thought a
cheap skate. And it was really a matter of no consequence. If he came
home a bit elevated, he went to bed, and two hours afterwards he was
all right again.

It was now the warm time of the year. One June afternoon, a Saturday
when there was a lot of work to get through, Gervaise herself had
piled the coke into the stove, around which ten irons were heating,
whilst a rumbling sound issued from the chimney. At that hour the sun
was shining full on the shop front, and the pavement reflected the
heat waves, causing all sorts of quaint shadows to dance over the
ceiling, and that blaze of light which assumed a bluish tinge from the
color of the paper on the shelves and against the window, was almost
blinding in the intensity with which it shone over the ironing-table,
like a golden dust shaken among the fine linen. The atmosphere was
stifling. The shop door was thrown wide open, but not a breath of air
entered; the clothes which were hung up on brass wires to dry, steamed
and became as stiff as shavings in less than three quarters of an
hour. For some little while past an oppressive silence had reigned in
that furnace-like heat, interrupted only by the smothered sound of the
banging down of the irons on the thick blanket covered with calico.

"Ah, well!" said Gervaise, "it's enough to melt one! We might have to
take off our chemises."

She was sitting on the floor, in front of a basin, starching some
things. Her sleeves were rolled up and her camisole was slipping down
her shoulders. Little curls of golden hair stuck were stuck to her
skin by perspiration. She carefully dipped caps, shirt-fronts, entire
petticoats, and the trimmings of women's drawers into the milky water.
Then she rolled the things up and placed them at the bottom of a
square basket, after dipping her hand in a pail and shaking it over
the portions of the shirts and drawers which she had not starched.

"This basketful's for you, Madame Putois," she said. "Look sharp, now!
It dries at once, and will want doing all over again in an hour."

Madame Putois, a thin little woman of forty-five, was ironing. Though
she was buttoned up in an old chestnut-colored dress, there was not a
drop of perspiration to be seen. She had not even taken her cap off, a
black cap trimmed with green ribbons turned partly yellow. And she
stood perfectly upright in front of the ironing-table, which was too
high for her, sticking out her elbows, and moving her iron with the
jerky evolutions of a puppet. On a sudden she exclaimed:

"Ah, no! Mademoiselle Clemence, you mustn't take your camisole off.
You know I don't like such indecencies. Whilst you're about it, you'd
better show everything. There's already three men over the way
stopping to look."

Tall Clemence called her an old beast between her teeth. She was
suffocating; she might certainly make herself comfortable; everyone
was not gifted with a skin as dry as touchwood. Besides no one could
see anything; and she held up her arms, whilst her opulent bosom
almost ripped her chemise, and her shoulders were bursting through the
straps. At the rate she was going, Clemence was not likely to have any
marrow left in her bones long before she was thirty years old.
Mornings after big parties she was unable to feel the ground she trod
upon, and fell asleep over her work, whilst her head and her stomach
seemed as though stuffed full of rags. But she was kept on all the
same, for no other workwoman could iron a shirt with her style. Shirts
were her specialty.

"This is mine, isn't it?" she declared, tapping her bosom. "And it
doesn't bite; it hurts nobody!"

"Clemence, put your wrapper on again," said Gervaise. "Madame Putois
is right, it isn't decent. People will begin to take my house for what
it isn't."

So tall Clemence dressed herself again, grumbling the while. "/Mon
Dieu!/ There's prudery for you."

And she vented her rage on the apprentice, that squint-eyed Augustine
who was ironing some stockings and handkerchiefs beside her. She
jostled her and pushed her with her elbow; but Augustine who was of a
surly disposition, and slyly spiteful in the way of an animal and a
drudge, spat on the back of the other's dress just out of revenge,
without being seen. Gervaise, during this incident, had commenced a
cap belonging to Madame Boche, which she intended to take great pains
with. She had prepared some boiled starch to make it look new again.
She was gently passing a little iron rounded at both ends over the
inside of the crown of the cap, when a bony-looking woman entered the
shop, her face covered with red blotches and her skirts sopping wet.
It was a washerwoman who employed three assistants at the wash-house
in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or.

"You've come too soon, Madame Bijard!" cried Gervaise. "I told you to
call this evening. I'm too busy to attend to you now!"

But as the washerwoman began lamenting and fearing that she would not
be able to put all the things to soak that day, she consented to give
her the dirty clothes at once. They went to fetch the bundles in the
left hand room where Etienne slept, and returned with enormous armfuls
which they piled up on the floor at the back of the shop. The sorting
lasted a good half hour. Gervaise made heaps all round her, throwing
the shirts in one, the chemises in another, the handkerchiefs, the
socks, the dish-cloths in others. Whenever she came across anything
belonging to a new customer, she marked it with a cross in red cotton
thread so as to know it again. And from all this dirty linen which
they were throwing about there issued an offensive odor in the warm
atmosphere.

"Oh! La, la. What a stench!" said Clemence, holding her nose.

"Of course there is! If it were clean they wouldn't send it to us,"
quietly explained Gervaise. "It smells as one would expect it to,
that's all! We said fourteen chemises, didn't we, Madame Bijard?
Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen--"

And she continued counting aloud. Used to this kind of thing she
evinced no disgust. She thrust her bare pink arms deep into the piles
of laundry: shirts yellow with grime, towels stiff from dirty dish
water, socks threadbare and eaten away by sweat. The strong odor which
slapped her in the face as she sorted the piles of clothes made her
feel drowsy. She seemed to be intoxicating herself with this stench of
humanity as she sat on the edge of a stool, bending far over, smiling
vaguely, her eyes slightly misty. It was as if her laziness was
started by a kind of smothering caused by the dirty clothes which
poisoned the air in the shop. Just as she was shaking out a child's
dirty diaper, Coupeau came in.

"By Jove!" he stuttered, "what a sun! It shines full on your head!"

The zinc-worker caught hold of the ironing-table to save himself from
falling. It was the first time he had been so drunk. Until then he had
sometimes come home slightly tipsy, but nothing more. This time,
however, he had a black eye, just a friendly slap he had run up
against in a playful moment. His curly hair, already streaked with
grey, must have dusted a corner in some low wineshop, for a cobweb
was hanging to one of his locks over the back of his neck. He was
still as attractive as ever, though his features were rather drawn and
aged, and his under jaw projected more; but he was always lively, as
he would sometimes say, with a complexion to be envied by a duchess.

"I'll just explain it to you," he resumed, addressing Gervaise.

"It was Celery-Root, you know him, the bloke with a wooden leg. Well,
as he was going back to his native place, he wanted to treat us. Oh!
We were all right, if it hadn't been for that devil of a sun. In the
street everybody looks shaky. Really, all the world's drunk!"

And as tall Clemence laughed at his thinking that the people in the
street were drunk, he was himself seized with an intense fit of gaiety
which almost strangled him.

"Look at them! The blessed tipplers! Aren't they funny?" he cried.
"But it's not their fault. It's the sun that's causing it."

All the shop laughed, even Madame Putois, who did not like drunkards.
That squint-eyed Augustine was cackling like a hen, suffocating with
her mouth wide open. Gervaise, however, suspected Coupeau of not
having come straight home, but of having passed an hour with the
Lorilleuxs who were always filling his head with unpleasant ideas.
When he swore he had not been near them she laughed also, full of
indulgence and not even reproaching him with having wasted another
day.

"/Mon Dieu!/ What nonsense he does talk," she murmured. "How does he
manage to say such stupid things?" Then in a maternal tone of voice
she added, "Now go to bed, won't you? You see we're busy; you're in
our way. That makes thirty-two handkerchiefs, Madame Bijard; and two
more, thirty-four."

But Coupeau was not sleepy. He stood there wagging his body from side
to side like the pendulum of a clock and chuckling in an obstinate and
teasing manner. Gervaise, wanting to finish with Madame Bijard, called
to Clemence to count the laundry while she made the list. Tall
Clemence made a dirty remark about every item that she touched. She
commented on the customers' misfortunes and their bedroom adventures.
She had a wash-house joke for every rip or stain that passed through
her hands. Augustine pretended that she didn't understand, but her
ears were wide open. Madame Putois compressed her lips, thinking it a
disgrace to say such things in front of Coupeau. It's not a man's
business to have anything to do with dirty linen. It's just not done
among decent people.

Gervaise, serious and her mind fully occupied with what she was about,
did not seem to notice. As she wrote she gave a glance to each article
as it passed before her, so as to recognize it; and she never made a
mistake; she guessed the owner's name just by the look or the color.
Those napkins belonged to the Goujets, that was evident; they had not
been used to wipe out frying-pans. That pillow-case certainly came
from the Boches on account of the pomatum with which Madame Boche
always smeared her things. There was no need to put your nose close to
the flannel vests of Monsieur Madinier; his skin was so oily that it
clogged up his woolens.

She knew many peculiarities, the cleanliness of some, the ragged
underclothes of neighborhood ladies who appeared on the streets in
silk dresses; how many items each family soiled weekly; the way some
people's garments were always torn at the same spot. Oh, she had many
tales to tell. For instance, the chemises of Mademoiselle Remanjou
provided material for endless comments: they wore out at the top first
because the old maid had bony, sharp shoulders; and they were never
really dirty, proving that you dry up by her age, like a stick of wood
out of which it's hard to squeeze a drop of anything. It was thus that
at every sorting of the dirty linen in the shop they undressed the
whole neighborhood of the Goutte-d'Or.

"Oh, here's something luscious!" cried Clemence, opening another
bundle.

Gervaise, suddenly seized with a great repugnance, drew back.

"Madame Gaudron's bundle?" said she. "I'll no longer wash for her,
I'll find some excuse. No, I'm not more particular than another. I've
handled some most disgusting linen in my time; but really, that lot I
can't stomach. What can the woman do to get her things into such a
state?"

And she requested Clemence to look sharp. But the girl continued her
remarks, thrusting the clothes sullenly about her, with complaints on
the soiled caps she waved like triumphal banners of filth. Meanwhile
the heaps around Gervaise had grown higher. Still seated on the edge
of the stool, she was now disappearing between the petticoats and
chemises. In front of her were the sheets, the table cloths, a
veritable mass of dirtiness.

She seemed even rosier and more languid than usual within this
spreading sea of soiled laundry. She had regained her composure,
forgetting Madame Gaudron's laundry, stirring the various piles of
clothing to make sure there had been no mistake in sorting. Squint-
eyed Augustine had just stuffed the stove so full of coke that its
cast-iron sides were bright red. The sun was shining obliquely on the
window; the shop was in a blaze. Then, Coupeau, whom the great heat
intoxicated all the more, was seized with a sudden fit of tenderness.
He advanced towards Gervaise with open arms and deeply moved.

"You're a good wife," he stammered. "I must kiss you."

But he caught his foot in the garments which barred the way and nearly
fell.

"What a nuisance you are!" said Gervaise without getting angry. "Keep
still, we're nearly done now."

No, he wanted to kiss her. He must do so because he loved her so much.
Whilst he stuttered he tried to get round the heap of petticoats and
stumbled against the pile of chemises; then as he obstinately
persisted his feet caught together and he fell flat, his nose in the
midst of the dish-cloths. Gervaise, beginning to lose her temper
pushed him, saying that he was mixing all the things up. But Clemence
and even Madame Putois maintained that she was wrong. It was very nice
of him after all. He wanted to kiss her. She might very well let
herself be kissed.

"You're lucky, you are, Madame Coupeau," said Madame Bijard, whose
drunkard of a husband, a locksmith, was nearly beating her to death
each evening when he came in. "If my old man was like that when he's
had a drop, it would be a real pleasure!"

Gervaise had calmed down and was already regretting her hastiness. She
helped Coupeau up on his legs again. Then she offered her cheek with a
smile. But the zinc-worker, without caring a button for the other
people being present, seized her bosom.

"It's not for the sake of saying so," he murmured; "but your dirty
linen stinks tremendously! Still, I love you all the same, you know."

"Leave off, you're tickling me," cried she, laughing the louder. "What
a great silly you are! How can you be so absurd?"

He had caught hold of her and would not let her go. She gradually
abandoned herself to him, dizzy from the slight faintness caused by
the heap of clothes and not minding Coupeau's foul-smelling breath.
The long kiss they exchanged on each other's mouths in the midst of
the filth of the laundress's trade was perhaps the first tumble in the
slow downfall of their life together.

Madame Bijard had meanwhile been tying the laundry up into bundles and
talking about her daughter, Eulalie, who at two was as smart as a
grown woman. She could be left by herself; she never cried or played
with matches. Finally Madame Bijard took the laundry away a bundle at
a time, her face splotched with purple and her tall form bent under
the weight.

"This heat is becoming unbearable, we're roasting," said Gervaise,
wiping her face before returning to Madame Boche's cap.

They talked of boxing Augustine's ears when they saw that the stove
was red-hot. The irons, also, were getting in the same condition. She
must have the very devil in her body! One could not turn one's back a
moment without her being up to some of her tricks. Now they would have
to wait a quarter of an hour before they would be able to use their
irons. Gervaise covered the fire with two shovelfuls of cinders. Then
she thought to hang some sheets on the brass wires near the ceiling to
serve as curtains to keep out the sunlight.

Things were now better in the shop. The temperature was still high,
but you could imagine it was cooler. Footsteps could still be heard
outside but you were free to make yourself comfortable. Clemence
removed her camisole again. Coupeau still refused to go to bed, so
they allowed him to stay, but he had to promise to be quiet in a
corner, for they were very busy.

"Whatever has that vermin done with my little iron?" murmured
Gervaise, speaking of Augustine.

They were for ever seeking the little iron, which they found in the
most out-of-the-way places, where the apprentice, so they said, hid it
out of spite. Gervaise could now finish Madame Boche's cap. First she
roughly smoothed the lace, spreading it out with her hand, and then
she straightened it up by light strokes of the iron. It had a very
fancy border consisting of narrow puffs alternating with insertions of
embroidery. She was working on it silently and conscientiously,
ironing the puffs and insertions.

Silence prevailed for a time. Nothing was to be heard except the soft
thud of irons on the ironing pad. On both sides of the huge
rectangular table Gervaise, her two employees, and the apprentice were
bending over, slaving at their tasks with rounded shoulders, their
arms moving incessantly. Each had a flat brick blackened by hot irons
near her. A soup plate filled with clean water was on the middle of
the table with a moistening rag and a small brush soaking in it.

A bouquet of large white lilies bloomed in what had once been a
brandied cherry jar. Its cluster of snowy flowers suggested a corner
of a royal garden. Madame Putois had begun the basket that Gervaise
had brought to her filled with towels, wrappers, cuffs and
underdrawers. Augustine was dawdling with the stockings and
washcloths, gazing into the air, seemingly fascinated by a large fly
that was buzzing around. Clemence had done thirty-four men's shirts so
far that day.

"Always wine, never spirits!" suddenly said the zinc-worker, who felt
the necessity of making this declaration. "Spirits make me drunk, I'll
have none of them."

Clemence took an iron from the stove with her leather holder in which
a piece of sheet iron was inserted, and held it up to her cheek to see
how hot it was. She rubbed it on her brick, wiped it on a piece of rag
hanging from her waist-band and started on her thirty-fifth shirt,
first of all ironing the shoulders and the sleeves.

"Bah! Monsieur Coupeau," said she after a minute or two, "a little
glass of brandy isn't bad. It sets me going. Besides, the sooner
you're merry, the jollier it is. Oh! I don't make any mistake; I know
that I shan't make old bones."

"What a nuisance you are with your funeral ideas!" interrupted Madame
Putois who did not like hearing people talk of anything sad.

Coupeau had arisen and was becoming angry thinking that he had been
accused of drinking brandy. He swore on his own head and on the heads
of his wife and child that there was not a drop of brandy in his
veins. And he went up to Clemence and blew in her face so that she
might smell his breath. Then he began to giggle because her bare
shoulders were right under his nose. He thought maybe he could see
more. Clemence, having folded over the back of the shirt and ironed it
on both sides, was now working on the cuffs and collar. However, as he
was shoving against her, he caused her to make a wrinkle, obliging her
to reach for the brush soaking in the soup plate to smooth it out.

"Madame," said she, "do make him leave off bothering me."

"Leave her alone; it's stupid of you to go on like that," quietly
observed Gervaise. "We're in a hurry, do you hear?"

They were in a hurry, well! What? It was not his fault. He was doing
no harm. He was not touching, he was only looking. Was it no longer
allowed to look at the beautiful things that God had made? All the
same, she had precious fine arms, that artful Clemence! She might
exhibit herself for two sous and nobody would have to regret his
money. The girl allowed him to go on, laughing at these coarse
compliments of a drunken man. And she soon commenced joking with him.
He chuffed her about the shirts. So she was always doing shirts? Why
yes, she practically lived in them. /Mon Dieu!/ She knew them pretty
well. Hundreds and hundreds of them had passed through her hands. Just
about every man in the neighborhood was wearing her handiwork on his
body. Her shoulders were shaking with laughter through all this, but
she managed to continue ironing.

"That's the banter!" said she, laughing harder than ever.

That squint-eyed Augustine almost burst, the joke seemed to her so
funny. The others bullied her. There was a brat for you who laughed at
words she ought not to understand! Clemence handed her her iron; the
apprentice finished up the irons on the stockings and the dish-cloths
when they were not hot enough for the starched things. But she took
hold of this one so clumsily that she made herself a cuff in the form
of a long burn on the wrist. And she sobbed and accused Clemence of
having burnt her on purpose. The latter who had gone to fetch a very
hot iron for the shirt-front consoled her at once by threatening to
iron her two ears if she did not leave off. Then she placed a piece of
flannel under the front and slowly passed the iron over it giving the
starch time to show up and dry. The shirt-front became as stiff and as
shiny as cardboard.

"By golly!" swore Coupeau, who was treading behind her with the
obstinacy of a drunkard.

He raised himself up with a shrill laugh that resembled a pulley in
want of grease. Clemence, leaning heavily over the ironing-table, her
wrists bent in, her elbows sticking out and wide apart was bending her
neck in a last effort; and all her muscles swelled, her shoulders rose
with the slow play of the muscles beating beneath the soft skin, her
breasts heaved, wet with perspiration in the rosy shadow of the half
open chemise. Then Coupeau thrust out his hands, trying to touch her
bare flesh.

"Madame! Madame!" cried Clemence, "do make him leave off! I shall go
away if it continues. I won't be intimated."

Gervaise glanced over just as her husband's hands began to explore
inside the chemise.

"Really, Coupeau, you're too foolish," said she, with a vexed air, as
though she were scolding a child who persisted in eating his jam
without bread. "You must go to bed."

"Yes, go to bed, Monsieur Coupeau; it will be far better," exclaimed
Madame Putois.

"Ah! Well," stuttered he, without ceasing to chuckle, "you're all
precious particular! So one mustn't amuse oneself now? Women, I know
how to handle them; I'll only kiss them, no more. One admires a lady,
you know, and wants to show it. And, besides, when one displays one's
goods, it's that one may make one's choice, isn't it? Why does the
tall blonde show everything she's got? It's not decent."

And turning towards Clemence, he added: "You know, my lovely, you're
wrong to be to very insolent. If it's because there are others here--"

But he was unable to continue. Gervaise very calmly seized hold of him
with one hand, and placed the other on his mouth. He struggled, just
by way of a joke, whilst she pushed him to the back of the shop,
towards the bedroom. He got his mouth free and said that he was
willing to go to bed, but that the tall blonde must come and warm his
feet.

Then Gervaise could be heard taking off his shoes. She removed his
clothes too, bullying him in a motherly way. He burst out laughing
after she had removed his trousers and kicked about, pretending that
she was tickling him. At last she tucked him in carefully like a
child. Was he comfortable now? But he did not answer; he called to
Clemence:

"I say, my lovely, I'm here, and waiting for you!"

When Gervaise went back into the shop, the squint-eyed Augustine was
being properly chastised by Clemence because of a dirty iron that
Madame Putois had used and which had caused her to soil a camisole.
Clemence, in defending herself for not having cleaned her iron, blamed
Augustine, swearing that it wasn't hers, in spite of the spot of
burned starch still clinging to the bottom. The apprentice, outraged
at the injustice, openly spat on the front of Clemence's dress,
earning a slap for her boldness. Now, as Augustine went about cleaning
the iron, she saved up her spit and each time she passed Clemence spat
on her back and laughed to herself.

Gervaise continued with the lace of Madame Boche's cap. In the sudden
calm which ensued, one could hear Coupeau's husky voice issuing from
the depths of the bedroom. He was still jolly, and was laughing to
himself as he uttered bits of phrases.

"How stupid she is, my wife! How stupid of her to put me to bed!
Really, it's too absurd, in the middle of the day, when one isn't
sleepy."

But, all on a sudden, he snored. Then Gervaise gave a sigh of relief,
happy in knowing that he was at length quiet, and sleeping off his
intoxication on two good mattresses. And she spoke out in the silence,
in a slow and continuous voice, without taking her eyes off her work.

"You see, he hasn't his reason, one can't be angry. Were I to be harsh
with him, it would be of no use. I prefer to agree with him and get
him to bed; then, at least, it's over at once and I'm quiet. Besides,
he isn't ill-natured, he loves me very much. You could see that just a
moment ago when he was desperate to give me a kiss. That's quite nice
of him. There are plenty of men, you know, who after drinking a bit
don't come straight home but stay out chasing women. Oh, he may fool
around with the women in the shop, but it doesn't lead to anything.
Clemence, you mustn't feel insulted. You know how it is when a man's
had too much to drink. He could do anything and not even remember it."

She spoke composedly, not at all angry, being quite used to Coupeau's
sprees and not holding them against him. A silence settled down for a
while when she stopped talking. There was a lot of work to get done.
They figured they would have to keep at it until eleven, working as
fast as they could. Now that they were undisturbed, all of them were
pounding away. Bare arms were moving back and forth, showing glimpses
of pink among the whiteness of the laundry.

More coke had been put into the stove and the sunlight slanted in
between the sheets onto the stove. You could see the heat rising up
through the rays of the sun. It became so stifling that Augustine ran
out of spit and was forced to lick her lips. The room smelled of the
heat and of the working women. The white lilies in the jar were
beginning to fade, yet they still exuded a pure and strong perfume.
Coupeau's heavy snores were heard like the regular ticking of a huge
clock, setting the tempo for the heavy labor in the shop.

On the morrow of his carouses, the zinc-worker always had a headache,
a splitting headache which kept him all day with his hair uncombed,
his breath offensive, and his mouth all swollen and askew. He got up
late on those days, not shaking the fleas off till about eight
o'clock; and he would hang about the shop, unable to make up his mind
to start off to his work. It was another day lost. In the morning he
would complain that his legs bent like pieces of thread, and would
call himself a great fool to guzzle to such an extent, as it broke
one's constitution. Then, too, there were a lot of lazy bums who
wouldn't let you go and you'd get to drinking more in spite of
yourself. No, no, no more for him.

After lunch he would always begin to perk up and deny that he had been
really drunk the night before. Maybe just a bit lit up. He was rock
solid and able to drink anything he wanted without even blinking an
eye.

When he had thoroughly badgered the workwomen, Gervaise would give him
twenty sous to clear out. And off he would go to buy his tobacco at
the "Little Civet," in the Rue des Poissonniers, where he generally
took a plum in brandy whenever he met a friend. Then, he spent the
rest of the twenty sous at old Francois's, at the corner of the Rue de
la Goutte-d'Or, where there was a famous wine, quite young, which
tickled your gullet. This was an old-fashioned place with a low
ceiling. There was a smoky room to one side where soup was served. He
would stay there until evening drinking because there was an
understanding that he didn't have to pay right away and they would
never send the bill to his wife. Besides he was a jolly fellow, who
would never do the least harm--a chap who loved a spree sure enough,
and who colored his nose in his turn but in a nice manner, full of
contempt for those pigs of men who have succumbed to alcohol, and whom
one never sees sober! He always went home as gay and as gallant as a
lark.

"Has your lover been?" he would sometimes ask Gervaise by way of
teasing her. "One never sees him now; I must go and rout him out."

The lover was Goujet. He avoided, in fact, calling too often for fear
of being in the way, and also of causing people to talk. Yet he
frequently found a pretext, such as bringing the washing; and he would
pass no end of time on the pavement in front of the shop. There was a
corner right at the back in which he liked to sit, without moving for
hours, and smoke his short pipe. Once every ten days, in the evening
after his dinner, he would venture there and take up his favorite
position. And he was no talker, his mouth almost seemed sewn up, as he
sat with his eyes fixed on Gervaise, and only removed his pipe to
laugh at everything she said. When they were working late on a
Saturday he would stay on, and appeared to amuse himself more than if
he had gone to a theatre.

Sometimes the women stayed in the shop ironing until three in the
morning. A lamp hung from the ceiling and spread a brilliant light
making the linen look like fresh snow. The apprentice would put up the
shop shutters, but since these July nights were scorching hot, the
door would be left open. The later the hour the more casual the women
became with their clothes while trying to be comfortable. The
lamplight flecked their rosy skin with gold specks, especially
Gervaise who was so pleasantly rounded.

On these nights Goujet would be overcome by the heat from the stove
and the odor of linen steaming under the hot irons. He would drift
into a sort of giddiness, his thinking slowed and his eyes obsessed by
these hurrying women as their naked arms moved back and forth, working
far into the night to have the neighborhood's best clothes ready for
Sunday.

Everything around the laundry was slumbering, settled into sleep for
the night. Midnight rang, then one o'clock, then two o'clock. There
were no vehicles or pedestrians. In the dark and deserted street, only
their shop door let out any light. Once in a while, footsteps would be
heard and a man would pass the shop. As he crossed the path of light
he would stretch his neck to look in, startled by the sound of the
thudding irons, and carry with him the quick glimpse of bare-
shouldered laundresses immersed in a rosy mist.

Goujet, seeing that Gervaise did not know what to do with Etienne, and
wishing to deliver him from Coupeau's kicks, had engaged him to go and
blow the bellows at the factory where he worked. The profession of
bolt-maker, if not one to be proud of on account of the dirt of the
forge and of the monotony of constantly hammering on pieces of iron of
a similar kind, was nevertheless a well paid one, at which ten and
even twelve francs a day could be earned. The youngster, who was then
twelve years old, would soon be able to go in for it, if the calling
was to his liking. And Etienne had thus become another link between
the laundress and the blacksmith. The latter would bring the child
home and speak of his good conduct. Everyone laughingly said that
Goujet was smitten with Gervaise. She knew it, and blushed like a
young girl, the flush of modesty coloring her cheeks with the bright
tints of an apple. The poor fellow, he was never any trouble! He never
made a bold gesture or an indelicate remark. You didn't find many men
like him. Gervaise didn't want to admit it, but she derived a great
deal of pleasure from being adored like this. Whenever a problem arose
she thought immediately of the blacksmith and was consoled. There was
never any awkward tension when they were alone together. They just
looked at each other and smiled happily with no need to talk. It was a
very sensible kind of affection.

Towards the end of the summer, Nana quite upset the household. She was
six years old and promised to be a thorough good-for-nothing. So as
not to have her always under her feet her mother took her every
morning to a little school in the Rue Polonceau kept by Mademoiselle
Josse. She fastened her playfellows' dresses together behind, she
filled the school-mistress's snuff-box with ashes, and invented other
tricks much less decent which could not be mentioned. Twice
Mademoiselle Josse expelled her and then took her back again so as not
to lose the six francs a month. Directly lessons were over Nana
avenged herself for having been kept in by making an infernal noise
under the porch and in the courtyard where the ironers, whose ears
could not stand the racket, sent her to play. There she would meet
Pauline, the Boches' daughter, and Victor, the son of Gervaise's old
employer--a big booby of ten who delighted in playing with very little
girls. Madame Fauconnier who had not quarreled with the Coupeaus
would herself send her son. In the house, too, there was an
extraordinary swarm of brats, flights of children who rolled down the
four staircases at all hours of the day and alighted on the pavement
of the courtyard like troops of noisy pillaging sparrows. Madame
Gaudron was responsible for nine of them, all with uncombed hair,
runny noses, hand-me-down clothes, saggy stockings and ripped jackets.
Another woman on the sixth floor had seven of them. This hoard that
only got their faces washed when it rained were in all shapes and
sizes, fat, thin, big and barely out of the cradle.

Nana reigned supreme over this host of urchins; she ordered about
girls twice her own size, and only deigned to relinquish a little of
her power in favor of Pauline and Victor, intimate confidants who
enforced her commands. This precious chit was for ever wanting to play
at being mamma, undressing the smallest ones to dress them again,
insisting on examining the others all over, messing them about and
exercising the capricious despotism of a grown-up person with a
vicious disposition. Under her leadership they got up tricks for which
they should have been well spanked. The troop paddled in the colored
water from the dyer's and emerged from it with legs stained blue or
red as high as the knees; then off it flew to the locksmith's where it
purloined nails and filings and started off again to alight in the
midst of the carpenter's shavings, enormous heaps of shavings, which
delighted it immensely and in which it rolled head over heels exposing
their behinds.

The courtyard was her kingdom. It echoed with the clatter of little
shoes as they stampeded back and forth with piercing cries. On some
days the courtyard was too small for them and the troop would dash
down into the cellar, race up a staircase, run along a corridor, then
dash up another staircase and follow another corridor for hours. They
never got tired of their yelling and clambering.

"Aren't they abominable, those little toads?" cried Madame Boche.
"Really, people can have but very little to do to have time get so
many brats. And yet they complain of having no bread."

Boche said that children pushed up out of poverty like mushrooms out
of manure. All day long his wife was screaming at them and chasing
them with her broom. Finally she had to lock the door of the cellar
when she learned from Pauline that Nana was playing doctor down there
in the dark, viciously finding pleasure in applying remedies to the
others by beating them with sticks.

Well, one afternoon there was a frightful scene. It was bound to have
come sooner or later. Nana had thought of a very funny little game.
She had stolen one of Madame Boche's wooden shoes from outside the
concierge's room. She tied a string to it and began dragging it about
like a cart. Victor on his side had had the idea to fill it with
potato parings. Then a procession was formed. Nana came first dragging
the wooden shoe. Pauline and Victor walked on her right and left. Then
the entire crowd of urchins followed in order, the big ones first, the
little ones next, jostling one another; a baby in long skirts about as
tall as a boot with an old tattered bonnet cocked on one side of its
head, brought up the rear. And the procession chanted something sad
with plenty of ohs! and ahs! Nana had said that they were going to
play at a funeral; the potato parings represented the body. When they
had gone the round of the courtyard, they recommenced. They thought it
immensely amusing.

"What can they be up to?" murmured Madame Boche, who emerged from her
room to see, ever mistrustful and on the alert.

And when she understood: "But it's my shoe!" cried she furiously. "Ah,
the rogues!"

She distributed some smacks, clouted Nana on both cheeks and
administered a kick to Pauline, that great goose who allowed the
others to steal her mother's shoe. It so happened that Gervaise was
filling a bucket at the top. When she beheld Nana, her nose bleeding
and choking with sobs, she almost sprang at the concierge's chignon.
It was not right to hit a child as though it were an ox. One could
have no heart, one must be the lowest of the low if one did so. Madame
Boche naturally replied in a similar strain. When one had a beast of a
girl like that one should keep her locked up. At length Boche himself
appeared in the doorway to call his wife to come in and not to enter
into so many explanations with a filthy thing like her. There was a
regular quarrel.

As a matter of fact things had not gone on very pleasantly between the
Boches and the Coupeaus for a month past. Gervaise, who was of a very
generous nature, was continually bestowing wine, broth, oranges and
slices of cake on the Boches. One night she had taken the remains of
an endive and beetroot salad to the concierge's room, knowing that the
latter would have done anything for such a treat. But on the morrow
she became quite pale with rage on hearing Mademoiselle Remanjou
relate how Madame Boche had thrown the salad away in the presence of
several persons with an air of disgust and under the pretext that she,
thank goodness, was not yet reduced to feeding on things which others
had messed about. From that time Gervaise took no more presents to the
Boches--nothing. Now the Boches seemed to think that Gervaise was
stealing something which was rightfully theirs. Gervaise saw that she
had made a mistake. If she hadn't catered to them so much in the
beginning, they wouldn't have gotten into the habit of expecting it
and might have remained on good terms with her.

Now the concierge began to spread slander about Gervaise. There was a
great fuss with the landlord, Monsieur Marescot, at the October rental
period, because Gervaise was a day late with the rent. Madame Boche
accused her of eating up all her money in fancy dishes. Monsieur
Marescot charged into the laundry demanding to be paid at once. He
didn't even bother to remove his hat. The money was ready and was paid
to him immediately. The Boches had now made up with the Lorilleuxs who
now came and did their guzzling in the concierge's lodge. They assured
each other that they never would have fallen out if it hadn't been for
Clump-clump. She was enough to set mountains to fighting. Ah! the
Boches knew her well now, they could understand how much the
Lorilleuxs must suffer. And whenever she passed beneath the doorway
they all affected to sneer at her.

One day, Gervaise went up to see the Lorilleuxs in spite of this. It
was with respect to mother Coupeau who was then sixty-seven years old.
Mother Coupeau's eyesight was almost completely gone. Her legs too
were no longer what they used to be. She had been obliged to give up
her last cleaning job and now threatened to die of hunger if
assistance were not forthcoming. Gervaise thought it shameful that a
woman of her age, having three children should be thus abandoned by
heaven and earth. And as Coupeau refused to speak to the Lorilleuxs on
the subject saying that she, Gervaise, could very well go and do so,
the latter went up in a fit of indignation with which her heart was
almost bursting.

When she reached their door she entered without knocking. Nothing had
been changed since the night when the Lorilleuxs, at their first
meeting had received her so ungraciously. The same strip of faded
woolen stuff separated the room from the workshop, a lodging like a
gun barrel, and which looked as though it had been built for an eel.
Right at the back Lorilleux, leaning over his bench, was squeezing
together one by one the links of a piece of chain, whilst Madame
Lorilleux, standing in front of the vise was passing a gold wire
through the draw-plate. In the broad daylight the little forge had a
rosy reflection.

"Yes, it's I!" said Gervaise. "I daresay you're surprised to see me as
we're at daggers drawn. But I've come neither for you nor myself you
may be quite sure. It's for mother Coupeau that I've come. Yes, I have
come to see if we're going to let her beg her bread from the charity
of others."

"Ah, well, that's a fine way to burst in upon one!" murmured Madame
Lorilleux. "One must have a rare cheek."

And she turned her back and resumed drawing her gold wire, affecting
to ignore her sister-in-law's presence. But Lorilleux raised his pale
face and cried:

"What's that you say?"

Then, as he had heard perfectly well, he continued:

"More back-bitings, eh? She's nice, mother Coupeau, to go and cry
starvation everywhere! Yet only the day before yesterday she dined
here. We do what we can. We haven't got all the gold of Peru. Only if
she goes about gossiping with others she had better stay with them,
for we don't like spies."

He took up the piece of chain and turned his back also, adding as
though with regret:

"When everyone gives five francs a month, we'll give five francs."

Gervaise had calmed down and felt quite chilled by the wooden looking
faces of the Lorilleux. She had never once set foot in their rooms
without experiencing a certain uneasiness. With her eyes fixed on the
floor, staring at the holes of the wooden grating through which the
waste gold fell she now explained herself in a reasonable manner.
Mother Coupeau had three children; if each one gave five francs it
would only make fifteen francs, and really that was not enough, one
could not live on it; they must at least triple the sum. But Lorilleux
cried out. Where did she think he could steal fifteen francs a month?
It was quite amusing, people thought he was rich simply because he had
gold in his place. He began then to criticize mother Coupeau: she had
to have her morning coffee, she took a sip of brandy now and then, she
was as demanding as if she were rich. /Mon Dieu!/ Sure, everyone liked
the good things of life. But if you've never saved a sou, you had to
do what other folks did and do without. Besides, mother Coupeau wasn't
too old to work. She could see well enough when she was trying to pick
a choice morsel from the platter. She was just an old spendthrift
trying to get others to provide her with comforts. Even had he had the
means, he would have considered it wrong to support any one in
idleness.

Gervaise remained conciliatory, and peaceably argued against all this
bad reasoning. She tried to soften the Lorilleuxs. But the husband
ended by no longer answering her. The wife was now at the forge
scouring a piece of chain in the little, long-handled brass saucepan
full of lye-water. She still affectedly turned her back, as though a
hundred leagues away. And Gervaise continued speaking, watching them
pretending to be absorbed in their labor in the midst of the black
dust of the workshop, their bodies distorted, their clothes patched
and greasy, both become stupidly hardened like old tools in the
pursuit of their narrow mechanical task. Then suddenly anger again got
the better of her and she exclaimed:

"Very well, I'd rather it was so; keep your money! I'll give mother
Coupeau a home, do you hear? I picked up a cat the other evening, so I
can at least do the same for your mother. And she shall be in want of
nothing; she shall have her coffee and her drop of brandy! Good
heavens! what a vile family!"

At these words Madame Lorilleux turned round. She brandished the
saucepan as though she was about to throw the lye-water in her sister-
in-law's face. She stammered with rage:

"Be off, or I shall do you an injury! And don't count on the five
francs because I won't give a radish! No, not a radish! Ah well, yes,
five francs! Mother would be your servant and you would enjoy yourself
with my five francs! If she goes to live with you, tell her this, she
may croak, I won't even send her a glass of water. Now off you go!
Clear out!"

"What a monster of a woman!" said Gervaise violently slamming the
door.

On the morrow she brought mother Coupeau to live with her, putting her
bed in the inner room where Nana slept. The moving did not take long,
for all the furniture mother Coupeau had was her bed, an ancient
walnut wardrobe which was put in the dirty-clothes room, a table, and
two chairs. They sold the table and had the chairs recaned. From the
very first the old lady took over the sweeping. She washed the dishes
and made herself useful, happy to have settled her problem.

The Lorilleux were furious enough to explode, especially since Madame
Lerat was now back on good terms with the Coupeaus. One day the two
sisters, the flower-maker and the chainmaker came to blows about
Gervaise because Madame Lerat dared to express approval of the way she
was taking care of their mother. When she noticed how this upset the
other, she went on to remark that Gervaise had magnificent eyes, eyes
warm enough to set paper on fire. The two of them commenced slapping
each other and swore they never would see each other again. Nowadays
Madame Lerat often spent her evenings in the shop, laughing to herself
at Clemence's spicy remarks.

Three years passed by. There were frequent quarrels and
reconciliations. Gervaise did not care a straw for the Lorilleux, the
Boches and all the others who were not of her way of thinking. If they
did not like it, they could forget it. She earned what she wished,
that was her principal concern. The people of the neighborhood had
ended by greatly esteeming her, for one did not find many customers so
kind as she was, paying punctually, never caviling or higgling. She
bought her bread of Madame Coudeloup, in the Rue des Poissonniers; her
meat of stout Charles, a butcher in the Rue Polonceau; her groceries
at Lehongre's, in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, almost opposite her own
shop. Francois, the wine merchant at the corner of the street,
supplied her with wine in baskets of fifty bottles. Her neighbor
Vigouroux, whose wife's hips must have been black and blue, the men
pinched her so much, sold coke to her at the same price as the gas
company. And, in all truth, her tradespeople served her faithfully,
knowing that there was everything to gain by treating her well.

Besides, whenever she went out around the neighborhood, she was
greeted everywhere. She felt quite at home. Sometimes she put off
doing a laundry job just to enjoy being outdoors among her good
friends. On days when she was too rushed to do her own cooking and had
to go out to buy something already cooked, she would stop to gossip
with her arms full of bowls. The neighbor she respected the most was
still the watchmaker. Often she would cross the street to greet him in
his tiny cupboard of a shop, taking pleasure in the gaiety of the
little cuckoo clocks with their pendulums ticking away the hours in
chorus.



                             CHAPTER VI.

One afternoon in the autumn Gervaise, who had been taking some washing
home to a customer in the Rue des Portes-Blanches, found herself at
the bottom of the Rue des Poissonniers just as the day was declining.
It had rained in the morning, the weather was very mild and an odor
rose from the greasy pavement; and the laundress, burdened with her
big basket, was rather out of breath, slow of step, and inclined to
take her ease as she ascended the street with the vague preoccupation
of a longing increased by her weariness. She would have liked to have
had something to eat. Then, on raising her eyes she beheld the name of
the Rue Marcadet, and she suddenly had the idea of going to see Goujet
at his forge. He had no end of times told her to look in any day she
was curious to see how iron was wrought. Besides in the presence of
other workmen she would ask for Etienne, and make believe that she had
merely called for the youngster.

The factory was somewhere on this end of the Rue Marcadet, but she
didn't know exactly where and street numbers were often lacking on
those ramshackle buildings separated by vacant lots. She wouldn't have
lived on this street for all the gold in the world. It was a wide
street, but dirty, black with soot from factories, with holes in the
pavement and deep ruts filled with stagnant water. On both sides were
rows of sheds, workshops with beams and brickwork exposed so that they
seemed unfinished, a messy collection of masonry. Beside them were
dubious lodging houses and even more dubious taverns. All she could
recall was that the bolt factory was next to a yard full of scrap iron
and rags, a sort of open sewer spread over the ground, storing
merchandise worth hundreds of thousands of francs, according to
Goujet.

The street was filled with a noisy racket. Exhaust pipes on roofs
puffed out violent jets of steam; an automatic sawmill added a
rhythmic screeching; a button factory shook the ground with the
rumbling of its machines. She was looking up toward the Montmartre
height, hesitant, uncertain whether to continue, when a gust of wind
blew down a mass of sooty smoke that covered the entire street. She
closed her eyes and held her breath. At that moment she heard the
sound of hammers in cadence. Without realizing it, she had arrived
directly in front of the bolt factory which she now recognized by the
vacant lot beside it full of piles of scrap iron and old rags.

She still hesitated, not knowing where to enter. A broken fence opened
a passage which seemed to lead through the heaps of rubbish from some
buildings recently pulled down. Two planks had been thrown across a
large puddle of muddy water that barred the way. She ended by
venturing along them, turned to the left and found herself lost in the
depths of a strange forest of old carts, standing on end with their
shafts in the air, and of hovels in ruins, the wood-work of which was
still standing. Toward the back, stabbing through the half-light of
sundown, a flame gleamed red. The clamor of the hammers had ceased.
She was advancing carefully when a workman, his face blackened with
coal-dust and wearing a goatee passed near her, casting a side-glance
with his pale eyes.

"Sir," asked she, "it's here is it not that a boy named Etienne works?
He's my son."

"Etienne, Etienne," repeated the workman in a hoarse voice as he
twisted himself about. "Etienne; no I don't know him."

An alcoholic reek like that from old brandy casks issued from his
mouth. Meeting a woman in this dark corner seemed to be giving the
fellow ideas, and so Gervaise drew back saying:

"But yet it's here that Monsieur Goujet works, isn't it?"

"Ah! Goujet, yes!" said the workman; "I know Goujet! If you come for
Goujet, go right to the end."

And turning round he called out at the top of his voice, which had a
sound of cracked brass:

"I say Golden-Mug, here's a lady wants you!"

But a clanging of iron drowned the cry! Gervaise went to the end. She
reached a door and stretching out her neck looked in. At first she
could distinguish nothing. The forge had died down, but there was
still a little glow which held back the advancing shadows from its
corner. Great shadows seemed to float in the air. At times black
shapes passed before the fire, shutting off this last bit of
brightness, silhouettes of men so strangely magnified that their arms
and legs were indistinct. Gervaise, not daring to venture in, called
from the doorway in a faint voice:

"Monsieur Goujet! Monsieur Goujet!"

Suddenly all became lighted up. Beneath the puff of the bellows a jet
of white flame had ascended and the whole interior of the shed could
be seen, walled in by wooden planks, with openings roughly plastered
over, and brick walls reinforcing the corners. Coal-ash had painted
the whole expanse a sooty grey. Spider webs hung from the beams like
rags hung up to dry, heavy with the accumulated dust of years. On
shelves along the walls, or hanging from nails, or tossed into
corners, she saw rusty iron, battered implements and huge tools. The
white flame flared higher, like an explosion of dazzling sunlight
revealing the trampled dirt underfoot, where the polished steel of
four anvils fixed on blocks took on a reflection of silver sprinkled
with gold.

Then Gervaise recognized Goujet in front of the forge by his beautiful
yellow beard. Etienne was blowing the bellows. Two other workmen were
there, but she only beheld Goujet and walked forward and stood before
him.

"Why it's Madame Gervaise!" he exclaimed with a bright look on his
face. "What a pleasant surprise."

But as his comrades appeared to be rather amused, he pushed Etienne
towards his mother and resumed:

"You've come to see the youngster. He behaves himself well, he's
beginning to get some strength in his wrists."

"Well!" she said, "it isn't easy to find your way here. I thought I
was going to the end of the world."

After telling about her journey, she asked why no one in the shop knew
Etienne's name. Goujet laughed and explained to her that everybody
called him "Little Zouzou" because he had his hair cut short like that
of a Zouave. While they were talking together Etienne stopped working
the bellows and the flame of the forge dwindled to a rosy glow amid
the gathering darkness. Touched by the presence of this smiling young
woman, the blacksmith stood gazing at her.

Then, as neither continued speaking, he seemed to recollect and broke
the silence:

"Excuse me, Madame Gervaise, I've something that has to be finished.
You'll stay, won't you? You're not in anybody's way."

She remained. Etienne returned to the bellows. The forge was soon
ablaze again with a cloud of sparks; the more so as the youngster,
wanting to show his mother what he could do, was making the bellows
blow a regular hurricane. Goujet, standing up watching a bar of iron
heating, was waiting with the tongs in his hand. The bright glare
illuminated him without a shadow--sleeves rolled back, shirt neck
open, bare arms and chest. When the bar was at white heat he seized it
with the tongs and cut it with a hammer on the anvil, in pieces of
equal length, as though he had been gently breaking pieces of glass.
Then he put the pieces back into the fire, from which he took them one
by one to work them into shape. He was forging hexagonal rivets. He
placed each piece in a tool-hole of the anvil, bent down the iron that
was to form the head, flattened the six sides and threw the finished
rivet still red-hot on to the black earth, where its bright light
gradually died out; and this with a continuous hammering, wielding in
his right hand a hammer weighing five pounds, completing a detail at
every blow, turning and working the iron with such dexterity that he
was able to talk to and look at those about him. The anvil had a
silvery ring. Without a drop of perspiration, quite at his ease, he
struck in a good-natured sort of a way, not appearing to exert himself
more than on the evenings when he cut out pictures at home.

"Oh! these are little rivets of twenty millimetres," said he in reply
to Gervaise's questions. "A fellow can do his three hundred a day. But
it requires practice, for one's arm soon grows weary."

And when she asked him if his wrist did not feel stiff at the end of
the day he laughed aloud. Did she think him a young lady? His wrist
had had plenty of drudgery for fifteen years past; it was now as
strong as the iron implements it had been so long in contact with. She
was right though; a gentleman who had never forged a rivet or a bolt,
and who would try to show off with his five pound hammer, would find
himself precious stiff in the course of a couple of hours. It did not
seem much, but a few years of it often did for some very strong
fellows. During this conversation the other workmen were also
hammering away all together. Their tall shadows danced about in the
light, the red flashes of the iron that the fire traversed, the gloomy
recesses, clouds of sparks darted out from beneath the hammers and
shone like suns on a level with the anvils. And Gervaise, feeling
happy and interested in the movement round the forge, did not think of
leaving. She was going a long way round to get nearer to Etienne
without having her hands burnt, when she saw the dirty and bearded
workman, whom she had spoken to outside, enter.

"So you've found him, madame?" asked he in his drunken bantering way.
"You know, Golden-Mug, it's I who told madame where to find you."

He was called Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, the brick
of bricks, a dab hand at bolt forging, who wetted his iron every day
with a pint and a half of brandy. He had gone out to have a drop,
because he felt he wanted greasing to make him last till six o'clock.
When he learnt that Little Zouzou's real name was Etienne, he thought
it very funny; and he showed his black teeth as he laughed. Then he
recognized Gervaise. Only the day before he had had a glass of wine
with Coupeau. You could speak to Coupeau about Salted-Mouth, otherwise
Drink-without-Thirst; he would at once say: "He's a jolly dog!" Ah!
that joker Coupeau! He was one of the right sort; he stood treat
oftener than his turn.

"I'm awfully glad to know you're his missus," added he.

"He deserves to have a pretty wife. Eh, Golden-Mug, madame is a fine
woman, isn't she?"

He was becoming quite gallant, sidling up towards the laundress, who
took hold of her basket and held it in front of her so as to keep him
at a distance. Goujet, annoyed and seeing that his comrade was joking
because of his friendship for Gervaise, called out to him:

"I say, lazybones, what about the forty millimetre bolts? Do you think
you're equal to them now that you've got your gullet full, you
confounded guzzler?"

The blacksmith was alluding to an order for big bolts which
necessitated two beaters at the anvil.

"I'm ready to start at this moment, big baby!" replied Salted-Mouth,
otherwise Drink-without-Thirst. "It sucks it's thumb and thinks itself
a man. In spite of your size I'm equal to you!"

"Yes, that's it, at once. Look sharp and off we go!"

"Right you are, my boy!"

They taunted each other, stimulated by Gervaise's presence. Goujet
placed the pieces of iron that had been cut beforehand in the fire,
then he fixed a tool-hole of large bore on an anvil. His comrade had
taken from against the wall two sledge-hammers weighing twenty pounds
each, the two big sisters of the factory whom the workers called
Fifine and Dedele. And he continued to brag, talking of a half-gross
of rivets which he had forged for the Dunkirk lighthouse, regular
jewels, things to be put in a museum, they were so daintily finished
off. Hang it all, no! he did not fear competition; before meeting with
another chap like him, you might search every factory in the capital.
They were going to have a laugh; they would see what they would see.

"Madame will be judge," said he, turning towards the young woman.

"Enough chattering," cried Goujet. "Now then, Zouzou, show your
muscle! It's not hot enough, my lad."

But Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, asked: "So we strike
together?"

"Not a bit of it! each his own bolt, my friend!"

This statement operated as a damper, and Goujet's comrade, on hearing
it, remained speechless, in spite of his boasting. Bolts of forty
millimetres fashioned by one man had never before been seen; the more
so as the bolts were to be round-headed, a work of great difficulty, a
real masterpiece to achieve.

The three other workmen came over, leaving their jobs, to watch. A
tall, lean one wagered a bottle of wine that Goujet would be beaten.
Meanwhile the two blacksmiths had chosen their sledge hammers with
eyes closed, because Fifine weighed a half pound more than Dedele.
Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, had the good luck to put
his hand on Dedele; Fifine fell to Golden-Mug.

While waiting for the iron to get hot enough, Salted-Mouth, otherwise
Drink-without-Thirst, again showing off, struck a pose before the
anvil while casting side glances toward Gervaise. He planted himself
solidly, tapping his feet impatiently like a man ready for a fight,
throwing all his strength into practice swings with Dedele. /Mon
Dieu!/ He was good at this; he could have flattened the Vendome column
like a pancake.

"Now then, off you go!" said Goujet, placing one of the pieces of
iron, as thick as a girl's wrist, in the tool-hole.

Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, leant back, and swung
Dedele round with both hands. Short and lean, with his goatee
bristling, and with his wolf-like eyes glaring beneath his unkempt
hair, he seemed to snap at each swing of the hammer, springing up from
the ground as though carried away by the force he put into the blow.
He was a fierce one, who fought with the iron, annoyed at finding it
so hard, and he even gave a grunt whenever he thought he had planted a
fierce stroke. Perhaps brandy did weaken other people's arms, but he
needed brandy in his veins, instead of blood. The drop he had taken a
little while before had made his carcass as warm as a boiler; he felt
he had the power of a steam-engine within him. And the iron seemed to
be afraid of him this time; he flattened it more easily than if it had
been a quid of tobacco. And it was a sight to see how Dedele waltzed!
She cut such capers, with her tootsies in the air, just like a little
dancer at the Elysee Montmartre, who exhibits her fine underclothes;
for it would never do to dawdle, iron is so deceitful, it cools at
once, just to spite the hammer. With thirty blows, Salted-Mouth,
otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, had fashioned the head of his bolt.
But he panted, his eyes were half out of his head, and got into a
great rage as he felt his arms growing tired. Then, carried away by
wrath, jumping about and yelling, he gave two more blows, just out of
revenge for his trouble. When he took the bolt from the hole, it was
deformed, its head being askew like a hunchback's.

"Come now! Isn't that quickly beaten into shape?" said he all the
same, with his self-confidence, as he presented his work to Gervaise.

"I'm no judge, sir," replied the laundress, reservedly.

But she saw plainly enough the marks of Dedele's last two kicks on the
bolt, and she was very pleased. She bit her lips so as not to laugh,
for now Goujet had every chance of winning.

It was now Golden-Mug's turn. Before commencing, he gave the laundress
a look full of confident tenderness. Then he did not hurry himself. He
measured his distance, and swung the hammer from on high with all his
might and at regular intervals. He had the classic style, accurate,
evenly balanced, and supple. Fifine, in his hands, did not cut capers,
like at a dance-hall, but made steady, certain progress; she rose and
fell in cadence, like a lady of quality solemnly leading some ancient
minuet.

There was no brandy in Golden-Mug's veins, only blood, throbbing
powerfully even into Fifine and controlling the job. That stalwart
fellow! What a magnificent man he was at work. The high flame of the
forge shone full on his face. His whole face seemed golden indeed with
his short hair curling over his forehead and his splendid yellow
beard. His neck was as straight as a column and his immense chest was
wide enough for a woman to sleep across it. His shoulders and
sculptured arms seemed to have been copied from a giant's statue in
some museum. You could see his muscles swelling, mountains of flesh
rippling and hardening under the skin; his shoulders, his chest, his
neck expanded; he seemed to shed light about him, becoming beautiful
and all-powerful like a kindly god.

He had now swung Fifine twenty times, his eyes always fixed on the
iron, drawing a deep breath with each blow, yet showing only two great
drops of sweat trickling down from his temples. He counted: "Twenty-
one, twenty-two, twenty-three--" Calmly Fifine continued, like a noble
lady dancing.

"What a show-off!" jeeringly murmured Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-
without-Thirst.

Gervaise, standing opposite Goujet, looked at him with an affectionate
smile. /Mon Dieu!/ What fools men are! Here these two men were,
pounding on their bolts to pay court to her. She understood it. They
were battling with hammer blows, like two big red roosters vying for
the favors of a little white hen. Sometimes the human heart has
fantastic ways of expressing itself. This thundering of Dedele and
Fifine upon the anvil was for her, this forge roaring and overflowing
was for her. They were forging their love before her, battling over
her.

To be honest, she rather enjoyed it. All women are happy to receive
compliments. The mighty blows of Golden-Mug found echoes in her heart;
they rang within her, a crystal-clear music in time with the throbbing
of her pulse. She had the feeling that this hammering was driving
something deep inside of her, something solid, something hard as the
iron of the bolt.

She had no doubt Goujet would win. Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-
without-Thirst, was much too ugly in his dirty tunic, jumping around
like a monkey that had escaped from a zoo. She waited, blushing red,
happy that the heat could explain the blush.

Goujet was still counting.

"And twenty-eight!" cried he at length, laying the hammer on the
ground. "It's finished; you can look."

The head of the bolt was clean, polished, and without a flaw, regular
goldsmith's work, with the roundness of a marble cast in a mold. The
other men looked at it and nodded their heads; there was no denying it
was lovely enough to be worshipped. Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-
without-Thirst, tried indeed to chuff; but it was no use, and ended by
returning to his anvil, with his nose put out of joint. Gervaise had
squeezed up against Goujet, as though to get a better view. Etienne
having let go the bellows, the forge was once more becoming enveloped
in shadow, like a brilliant red sunset suddenly giving way to black
night. And the blacksmith and the laundress experienced a sweet
pleasure in feeling this gloom surround them in that shed black with
soot and filings, and where an odor of old iron prevailed. They could
not have thought themselves more alone in the Bois de Vincennes had
they met there in the depths of some copse. He took her hand as though
he had conquered her.

Outside, they scarcely exchanged a word. All he could find to say was
that she might have taken Etienne away with her, had it not been that
there was still another half-hour's work to get through. When she
started away he called her back, wanting a few more minutes with her.

"Come along. You haven't seen all the place. It's quite interesting."

He led her to another shed where the owner was installing a new
machine. She hesitated in the doorway, oppressed by an instinctive
dread. The great hall was vibrating from the machines and black
shadows filled the air. He reassured her with a smile, swearing that
there was nothing to fear, only she should be careful not to let her
skirts get caught in any of the gears. He went first and she followed
into the deafening hubbub of whistling, amid clouds of steam peopled
by human shadows moving busily.

The passages were very narrow and there were obstacles to step over,
holes to avoid, passing carts to move back from. She couldn't
distinguish anything clearly or hear what Goujet was saying.

Gervaise looked up and stopped to stare at the leather belts hanging
from the roof in a gigantic spider web, each strip ceaselessly
revolving. The steam engine that drove them was hidden behind a low
brick wall so that the belts seemed to be moving by themselves. She
stumbled and almost fell while looking up.

Goujet raised his voice with explanations. There were the tapping
machines operated by women, which put threads on bolts and nuts. Their
steel gears were shining with oil. She could follow the entire
process. She nodded her head and smiled.

She was still a little tense, however, feeling uneasy at being so
small among these rough metalworkers. She jumped back more than once,
her blood suddenly chilled by the dull thud of a machine.

Goujet had stopped before one of the rivet machines. He stood there
brooding, his head lowered, his gaze fixed. This machine forged forty
millimetre rivets with the calm ease of a giant. Nothing could be
simpler. The stoker took the iron shank from the furnace; the striker
put it into the socket, where a continuous stream of water cooled it
to prevent softening of the steel. The press descended and the bolt
flew out onto the ground, its head as round as though cast in a mold.
Every twelve hours this machine made hundreds of kilograms of bolts!

Goujet was not a mean person, but there were moments when he wanted to
take Fifine and smash this machine to bits because he was angry to see
that its arms were stronger than his own. He reasoned with himself,
telling himself that human flesh cannot compete with steel. But he was
still deeply hurt. The day would come when machinery would destroy the
skilled worker. Their day's pay had already fallen from twelve francs
to nine francs. There was talk of cutting it again. He stared at it,
frowning, for three minutes without saying a word. His yellow beard
seemed to bristle defiantly. Then, gradually an expression of
resignation came over his face and he turned toward Gervaise who was
clinging tightly to him and said with a sad smile:

"Well! That machine would certainly win a contest. But perhaps it will
be for the good of mankind in the long run."

Gervaise didn't care a bit about the welfare of mankind. Smiling, she
said to Goujet:

"I like yours better, because they show the hand of an artist."

Hearing this gave him great happiness because he had been afraid that
she might be scornful of him after seeing the machines. /Mon Dieu!/ He
might be stronger than Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst,
but the machines were stronger yet. When Gervaise finally took her
leave, Goujet was so happy that he almost crushed her with a hug.

The laundress went every Saturday to the Goujets to deliver their
washing. They still lived in the little house in the Rue Neuve de la
Goutte-d'Or. During the first year she had regularly repaid them
twenty francs a month; so as not to jumble up the accounts, the
washing-book was only made up at the end of each month, and then she
added to the amount whatever sum was necessary to make the twenty
francs, for the Goujets' washing rarely came to more than seven or
eight francs during that time. She had therefore paid off nearly half
the sum owing, when one quarter day, not knowing what to do, some of
her customers not having kept their promises, she had been obliged to
go to the Goujets and borrow from them sufficient for her rent. On two
other occasions she had also applied to them for the money to pay her
workwomen, so that the debt had increased again to four hundred and
twenty-five francs. Now, she no longer gave a halfpenny; she worked
off the amount solely by the washing. It was not that she worked less,
or that her business was not so prosperous. But something was going
wrong in her home; the money seemed to melt away, and she was glad
when she was able to make both ends meet. /Mon Dieu!/ What's the use
of complaining as long as one gets by. She was putting on weight and
this caused her to become a bit lazy. She no longer had the energy
that she had in the past.  Oh well, there was always something coming
in.

Madame Goujet felt a motherly concern for Gervaise and sometimes
reprimanded her. This wasn't due to the money owed but because she
liked her and didn't want to see her get into difficulties. She never
mentioned the debt. In short, she behaved with the utmost delicacy.

The morrow of Gervaise's visit to the forge happened to be the last
Saturday of the month. When she reached the Goujets, where she made a
point of going herself, her basket had so weighed on her arms that she
was quite two minutes before she could get her breath. One would
hardly believe how heavy clothes are, especially when there are sheets
among them.

"Are you sure you've brought everything?" asked Madame Goujet.

She was very strict on that point. She insisted on having her washing
brought home without a single article being kept back for the sake of
order, as she said. She also required the laundress always to come on
the day arranged and at the same hour; in that way there was no time
wasted.

"Oh! yes, everything is here," replied Gervaise smiling. "You know I
never leave anything behind."

"That's true," admitted Madame Goujet; "you've got into many bad
habits but you're still free of that one."

And while the laundress emptied her basket, laying the linen on the
bed, the old woman praised her; she never burnt the things nor tore
them like so many others did, neither did she pull the buttons off
with the iron; only she used too much blue and made the shirt-fronts
too stiff with starch.

"Just look, it's like cardboard," continued she, making one crackle
between her fingers. "My son does not complain, but it cuts his neck.
To-morrow his neck will be all scratched when we return from
Vincennes."

"No, don't say that!" exclaimed Gervaise, quite grieved. "To look
nice, shirts must be rather stiff, otherwise it's as though one had a
rag on one's body. You should just see what the gentlemen wear. I do
all your things myself. The workwomen never touch them and I assure
you I take great pains. I would, if necessary, do everything over a
dozen times, because it's for you, you know."

She slightly blushed as she stammered out the last words. She was
afraid of showing the great pleasure she took in ironing Goujet's
shirts. She certainly had no wicked thoughts, but she was none the
less a little bit ashamed.

"Oh! I'm not complaining of your work; I know it's perfection," said
Madame Goujet. "For instance, you've done this cap splendidly, only
you could bring out the embroidery like that. And the flutings are all
so even. Oh! I recognize your hand at once. When you give even a dish-
cloth to one of your workwomen I detect it at once. In future, use a
little less starch, that's all! Goujet does not care to look like a
stylish gentleman."

She had taken out her notebook and was crossing off the various items.
Everything was in order. She noticed that Gervaise was charging six
sous for each bonnet. She protested, but had to agree that it was in
line with present prices. Men's shirts were five sous, women's
underdrawers four sous, pillow-cases a sou and a half, and aprons one
sou. No, the prices weren't high. Some laundresses charged a sou more
for each item.

Gervaise was now calling out the soiled clothes, as she packed them in
her basket, for Madame Goujet to list. Then she lingered on,
embarrassed by a request which she wished to make.

"Madame Goujet," she said at length, "if it does not inconvenience
you, I would like to take the money for the month's washing."

It so happened that that month was a very heavy one, the account they
had made up together amounting to ten francs, seven sous. Madame
Goujet looked at her a moment in a serious manner, then she replied:

"My child, it shall be as you wish. I will not refuse you the money as
you are in need of it. Only it's scarcely the way to pay off your
debt; I say that for your sake, you know. Really now, you should be
careful."

Gervaise received the lecture with bowed head and stammering excuses.
The ten francs were to make up the amount of a bill she had given her
coke merchant. But on hearing the word "bill," Madame Goujet became
severer still. She gave herself as an example; she had reduced her
expenditure ever since Goujet's wages had been lowered from twelve to
nine francs a day. When one was wanting in wisdom whilst young, one
dies of hunger in one's old age. But she held back and didn't tell
Gervaise that she gave her their laundry only in order to help her pay
off the debt. Before that she had done all her own washing, and she
would have to do it herself again if the laundry continued taking so
much cash out of her pocket. Gervaise spoke her thanks and left
quickly as soon as she had received the ten francs seven sous. Outside
on the landing she was so relieved she wanted to dance. She was
becoming used to the annoying, unpleasant difficulties caused by a
shortage of money and preferred to remember not the embarrassment but
the joy in escaping from them.

It was also on that Saturday that Gervaise met with a rather strange
adventure as she descended the Goujets' staircase. She was obliged to
stand up close against the stair-rail with her basket to make way for
a tall bare-headed woman who was coming up, carrying in her hand a
very fresh mackerel, with bloody gills, in a piece of paper. She
recognized Virginie, the girl whose face she had slapped at the wash-
house. They looked each other full in the face. Gervaise shut her
eyes. She thought for a moment that she was going to be hit in the
face with the fish. But no, Virginie even smiled slightly. Then, as
her basket was blocking the staircase, the laundress wished to show
how polite she, too, could be.

"I beg your pardon," she said.

"You are completely excused," replied the tall brunette.

And they remained conversing together on the stairs, reconciled at
once without having ventured on a single allusion to the past.
Virginie, then twenty-nine years old, had become a superb woman of
strapping proportions, her face, however, looking rather long between
her two plaits of jet black hair. She at once began to relate her
history just to show off. She had a husband now; she had married in
the spring an ex-journeyman cabinetmaker, who recently left the army,
and who had applied to be admitted into the police, because a post of
that kind is more to be depended upon and more respectable. She had
been out to buy the mackerel for him.

"He adores mackerel," said she. "We must spoil them, those naughty
men, mustn't we? But come up. You shall see our home. We are standing
in a draught here."

After Gervaise had told of her own marriage and that she had formerly
occupied the very apartment Virginie now had, Virginie urged her even
more strongly to come up since it is always nice to visit a spot where
one had been happy.

Virginie had lived for five years on the Left Bank at Gros-Caillou.
That was where she had met her husband while he was still in the army.
But she got tired of it, and wanted to come back to the Goutte-d'Or
neighborhood where she knew everyone. She had only been living in the
rooms opposite the Goujets for two weeks. Oh! everything was still a
mess, but they were slowly getting it in order.

Then, still on the staircase, they finally told each other their
names.

"Madame Coupeau."

"Madame Poisson."

And from that time forth, they called each other on every possible
occasion Madame Poisson and Madame Coupeau, solely for the pleasure of
being madame, they who in former days had been acquainted when
occupying rather questionable positions. However, Gervaise felt rather
mistrustful at heart. Perhaps the tall brunette had made it up the
better to avenge herself for the beating at the wash-house by
concocting some plan worthy of a spiteful hypocritical creature.
Gervaise determined to be upon her guard. For the time being, as
Virginie behaved so nicely, she would be nice also.

In the room upstairs, Poisson, the husband, a man of thirty-five, with
a cadaverous-looking countenance and carroty moustaches and beard, was
seated working at a table near the window. He was making little boxes.
His only tools were a knife, a tiny saw the size of a nail file and a
pot of glue. He was using wood from old cigar boxes, thin boards of
unfinished mahogany upon which he executed fretwork and embellishments
of extraordinary delicacy. All year long he worked at making the same
size boxes, only varying them occasionally by inlay work, new designs
for the cover, or putting compartments inside. He did not sell his
work, he distributed it in presents to persons of his acquaintance. It
was for his own amusement, a way of occupying his time while waiting
for his appointment to the police force. It was all that remained with
him from his former occupation of cabinetmaking.

Poisson rose from his seat and politely bowed to Gervaise, when his
wife introduced her as an old friend. But he was no talker; he at once
returned to his little saw. From time to time he merely glanced in the
direction of the mackerel placed on the corner of the chest of
drawers. Gervaise was very pleased to see her old lodging once more.
She told them whereabouts her own furniture stood, and pointed out the
place on the floor where Nana had been born. How strange it was to
meet like this again, after so many years! They never dreamed of
running into each other like this and even living in the same rooms.

Virginie added some further details. Her husband had inherited a
little money from an aunt and he would probably set her up in a shop
before long. Meanwhile she was still sewing. At length, at the end of
a full half hour, the laundress took her leave. Poisson scarcely
seemed to notice her departure. While seeing her to the door, Virginie
promised to return the visit. And she would have Gervaise do her
laundry. While Virginie was keeping her in further conversation on the
landing, Gervaise had the feeling that she wanted to say something
about Lantier and her sister Adele, and this notion upset her a bit.
But not a word was uttered respecting those unpleasant things; they
parted, wishing each other good-bye in a very amiable manner.

"Good-bye, Madame Coupeau."

"Good-bye, Madame Poisson."

That was the starting point of a great friendship. A week later,
Virginie never passed Gervaise's shop without going in; and she
remained there gossiping for hours together, to such an extent indeed
that Poisson, filled with anxiety, fearing she had been run over,
would come and seek her with his expressionless and death-like
countenance. Now that she was seeing the dressmaker every day Gervaise
became aware of a strange obsession. Every time Virginie began to talk
Gervaise had the feeling Lantier was going to be mentioned. So she had
Lantier on her mind throughout all of Virginie's visits. This was
silly because, in fact, she didn't care a bit about Lantier or Adele
at this time. She was quite certain that she had no curiosity as to
what had happened to either of them. But this obsession got hold of
her in spite of herself. Anyway, she didn't hold it against Virginie,
it wasn't her fault, surely. She enjoyed being with her and looked
forward to her visits.

Meanwhile winter had come, the Coupeaus' fourth winter in the Rue de
la Goutte-d'Or. December and January were particularly cold. It froze
hard as it well could. After New Year's day the snow remained three
weeks without melting. It did not interfere with work, but the
contrary, for winter is the best season for the ironers. It was very
pleasant inside the shop! There was never any ice on the window-panes
like there was at the grocer's and the hosier's opposite. The stove
was always stuffed with coke and kept things as hot as a Turkish bath.
With the laundry steaming overhead you could almost imagine it was
summer. You were quite comfortable with the doors closed and so much
warmth everywhere that you were tempted to doze off with your eyes
open. Gervaise laughed and said it reminded her of summer in the
country. The street traffic made no noise in the snow and you could
hardly hear the pedestrians who passed by. Only children's voices were
heard in the silence, especially the noisy band of urchins who had
made a long slide in the gutter near the blacksmith's shop.

Gervaise would sometimes go over to the door, wipe the moisture from
one of the panes with her hand, and look out to see what was happening
to her neighborhood due to this extraordinary cold spell. Not one nose
was being poked out of the adjacent shops. The entire neighborhood was
muffled in snow. The only person she was able to exchange nods with
was the coal-dealer next door, who still walked out bare-headed
despite the severe freeze.

What was especially enjoyable in this awful weather was to have some
nice hot coffee in the middle of the day. The workwomen had no cause
for complaint. The mistress made it very strong and without a grain of
chicory. It was quite different to Madame Fauconnier's coffee, which
was like ditch-water. Only whenever mother Coupeau undertook to make
it, it was always an interminable time before it was ready, because
she would fall asleep over the kettle. On these occasions, when the
workwomen had finished their lunch, they would do a little ironing
whilst waiting for the coffee.

It so happened that on the morrow of Twelfth-day half-past twelve
struck and still the coffee was not ready. It seemed to persist in
declining to pass through the strainer. Mother Coupeau tapped against
the pot with a tea-spoon; and one could hear the drops falling slowly,
one by one, and without hurrying themselves any the more.

"Leave it alone," said tall Clemence; "you'll make it thick. To-day
there'll be as much to eat as to drink."

Tall Clemence was working on a man's shirt, the plaits of which she
separated with her finger-nail. She had caught a cold, her eyes were
frightfully swollen and her chest was shaken with fits of coughing,
which doubled her up beside the work-table. With all that she had not
even a handkerchief round her neck and she was dressed in some cheap
flimsy woolen stuff in which she shivered. Close by, Madame Putois,
wrapped up in flannel muffled up to her ears, was ironing a petticoat
which she turned round the skirt-board, the narrow end of which rested
on the back of a chair; whilst a sheet laid on the floor prevented the
petticoat from getting dirty as it trailed along the tiles. Gervaise
alone occupied half the work-table with some embroidered muslin
curtains, over which she passed her iron in a straight line with her
arms stretched out to avoid making any creases. All on a sudden the
coffee running through noisily caused her to raise her head. It was
that squint-eyed Augustine who had just given it an outlet by
thrusting a spoon through the strainer.

"Leave it alone!" cried Gervaise. "Whatever is the matter with you?
It'll be like drinking mud now."

Mother Coupeau had placed five glasses on a corner of the work-table
that was free. The women now left their work. The mistress always
poured out the coffee herself after putting two lumps of sugar into
each glass. It was the moment that they all looked forward to. On this
occasion, as each one took her glass and squatted down on a little
stool in front of the stove, the shop-door opened. Virginie entered,
shivering all over.

"Ah, my children," said she, "it cuts you in two! I can no longer feel
my ears. The cold is something awful!"

"Why, it's Madame Poisson!" exclaimed Gervaise. "Ah, well! You've come
at the right time. You must have some coffee with us."

"On my word, I can't say no. One feels the frost in one's bones merely
by crossing the street."

There was still some coffee left, luckily. Mother Coupeau went and
fetched a sixth glass, and Gervaise let Virginie help herself to sugar
out of politeness. The workwomen moved to give Virginie a small space
close to the stove. Her nose was very red, she shivered a bit,
pressing her hands which were stiff with cold around the glass to warm
them. She had just come from the grocery story where you froze to
death waiting for a quarter-pound of cheese and so she raved about the
warmth of the shop. It felt so good on one's skin. After warming up,
she stretched out her long legs and the six of them relaxed together,
supping their coffee slowly, surround by all the work still to be
done. Mother Coupeau and Virginie were the only ones on chairs, the
others, on low benches, seemed to be sitting on the floor. Squint-eyed
Augustine had pulled over a corner of the cloth below the skirt,
stretching herself out on it.

No one spoke at first; all kept their noses in their glasses, enjoying
their coffee.

"It's not bad, all the same," declared Clemence.

But she was seized with a fit of coughing, and almost choked. She
leant her head against the wall to cough with more force.

"That's a bad cough you've got," said Virginie. "Wherever did you
catch it?"

"One never knows!" replied Clemence, wiping her face with her sleeve.
"It must have been the other night. There were two girls who were
flaying each other outside the 'Grand-Balcony.' I wanted to see, so I
stood there whilst the snow was falling. Ah, what a drubbing! It was
enough to make one die with laughing. One had her nose almost pulled
off; the blood streamed on the ground. When the other, a great long
stick like me, saw the blood, she slipped away as quick as she could.
And I coughed nearly all night. Besides that too, men are so stupid in
bed, they don't let you have any covers over you half the time."

"Pretty conduct that," murmured Madame Putois. "You're killing
yourself, my girl."

"And if it pleases me to kill myself! Life isn't so very amusing.
Slaving all the blessed day long to earn fifty-five sous, cooking
one's blood from morning to night in front of the stove; no, you know,
I've had enough of it! All the same though, this cough won't do me the
service of making me croak. It'll go off the same way it came."

A short silence ensued. The good-for-nothing Clemence, who led riots
in low dancing establishments, and shrieked like a screech-owl at
work, always saddened everyone with her thoughts of death. Gervaise
knew her well, and so merely said:

"You're never very gay the morning after a night of high living."

The truth was that Gervaise did not like this talk about women
fighting. Because of the flogging at the wash-house it annoyed her
whenever anyone spoke before her and Virginie of kicks with wooden
shoes and of slaps in the face. It so happened, too, that Virginie was
looking at her and smiling.

"By the way," she said quietly, "yesterday I saw some hair-pulling.
They almost tore each other to pieces."

"Who were they?" Madame Putois inquired.

"The midwife and her maid, you know, a little blonde. What a pest the
girl is! She was yelling at her employer that she had got rid of a
child for the fruit woman and that she was going to tell the police if
she wasn't paid to keep quiet. So the midwife slapped her right in the
face and then the little blonde jumped on her and started scratching
her and pulling her hair, really--by the roots. The sausage-man had to
grab her to put a stop to it."

The workwomen laughed. Then they all took a sip of coffee.

"Do you believe that she really got rid of a child?" Clemence asked.

"Oh, yes! The rumor was all round the neighborhood," Virginie
answered. "I didn't see it myself, you understand, but it's part of
the job. All midwives do it."

"Well!" exclaimed Madame Putois. "You have to be pretty stupid to put
yourself in their hands. No thanks, you could be maimed for life. But
there's a sure way to do it. Drink a glass of holy water every evening
and make the sign of the cross three times over your stomach with your
thumb. Then your troubles will be over."

Everyone thought mother Coupeau was asleep, but she shook her head in
protest. She knew another way and it was infallible. You had to eat a
hard-cooked egg every two hours, and put spinach leaves on your loins.
Squint-eyed Augustine set up a hen-cackling when she heard this. They
had forgotten about her. Gervaise lifted up the petticoat that was
being ironed and found her rolling on the floor with laughter. She
jerked her upright. What was she laughing about? Was it right for her
to be eavesdropping when older people were talking, the little goose?
Anyway it was time for her to deliver the laundry to a friend of
Madame Lerat at Les Batignolles. So Gervaise hung a basket on her arm
and pushed her toward the door. Augustine went off, sobbing and
sniveling, dragging her feet in the snow.

Meanwhile mother Coupeau, Madame Putois and Clemence were discussing
the effectiveness of hard-cooked eggs and spinach leaves. Then
Virginie said softly:

"/Mon Dieu!/ you have a fight, and then you make it up, if you have a
generous heart." She leaned toward Gervaise with a smile and added,
"Really, I don't hold any grudge against you for that business at the
wash-house. You remember it, don't you?"

This was what Gervaise had been dreading. She guessed that the subject
of Lantier and Adele would now come up.

Virginie had moved close to Gervaise so as not to be overheard by the
others. Gervaise, lulled by the excessive heat, felt so limp that she
couldn't even summon the willpower to change the subject. She foresaw
what the tall brunette would say and her heart was stirred with an
emotion which she didn't want to admit to herself.

"I hope I'm not hurting your feelings," Virginie continued. "Often
I've had it on the tip of my tongue. But since we are now on the
subject, word of honor, I don't have any grudge against you."

She stirred her remaining coffee and then took a small sip. Gervaise,
with her heart in her throat, wondered if Virginie had really forgiven
her as completely as she said, for she seemed to observe sparks in her
dark eyes.

"You see," Virginie went on, "you had an excuse. They played a really
rotten, dirty trick on you. To be fair about it, if it had been me,
I'd have taken a knife to her."

She drank another small sip, then added rapidly without a pause:

"Anyway, it didn't bring them happiness, /mon Dieu/! Not a bit of it.
They went to live over at La Glaciere, in a filthy street that was
always muddy. I went two days later to have lunch with them. I can
tell you, it was quite a trip by bus. Well, I found them already
fighting. Really, as I came in they were boxing each other's ears.
Fine pair of love birds! Adele isn't worth the rope to hang her. I say
that even if she is my own sister. It would take too long to relate
all the nasty tricks she played on me, and anyhow, it's between the
two of us. As for Lantier--well, he's no good either. He'd beat the
hide off you for anything, and with his fist closed too. They fought
all the time. The police even came once."

Virginie went on about other fights. Oh, she knew of things that would
make your hair stand up. Gervaise listened in silence, her face pale.
It was nearly seven years since she had heard a word about Lantier.
She hadn't realized what a strong curiosity she had as to what had
become of the poor man, even though he had treated her badly. And she
never would have believed that just the mention of his name could put
such a glowing warmth in the pit of her stomach. She certainly had no
reason to be jealous of Adele any more but she rejoiced to think of
her body all bruised from the beatings. She could have listened to
Virginie all night, but she didn't ask any questions, not wanting to
appear much interested.

Virginie stopped to sip at her coffee. Gervaise, realizing that she
was expected to say something, asked, with a pretence of indifference:

"Are they still living at La Glaciere?"

"No!" the other replied. "Didn't I tell you? They separated last week.
One morning, Adele moved out and Lantier didn't chase after her."

"So they're separated!" Gervaise exclaimed.

"Who are you talking about?" Clemence asked, interrupting her
conversation with mother Coupeau and Madame Putois.

"Nobody you know," said Virginie.

She was looking at Gervaise carefully and could see that she was
upset. She moved still closer, maliciously finding pleasure in
bringing up these old stories. Of a sudden she asked Gervaise what she
would do if Lantier came round here. Men were really such strange
creatures, he might decide to return to his first love. This caused
Gervaise to sit up very straight and dignified. She was a married
woman; she would send Lantier off immediately. There was no
possibility of anything further between them, not even a handshake.
She would not even want to look that man in the face.

"I know that Etienne is his son, and that's a relationship that
remains," she said. "If Lantier wants to see his son, I'll send the
boy to him because you can't stop a father from seeing his child. But
as for myself, I don't want him to touch me even with the tip of his
finger. That is all finished."

Desiring to break off this conversation, she seemed to awake with a
start and called out to the women:

"You ladies! Do you think all these clothes are going to iron
themselves? Get to work!"

The workwomen, slow from the heat and general laziness, didn't hurry
themselves, but went right on talking, gossiping about other people
they had known.

Gervaise shook herself and got to her feet. Couldn't earn money by
sitting all day. She was the first to return to the ironing, but found
that her curtains had been spotted by the coffee and she had to rub
out the stains with a damp cloth. The other women were now stretching
and getting ready to begin ironing.

Clemence had a terrible attack of coughing as soon as she moved.
Finally she was able to return to the shirt she had been doing. Madame
Putois began to work on the petticoat again.

"Well, good-bye," said Virginie. "I only came out for a quarter-pound
of Swiss cheese. Poisson must think I've frozen to death on the way."

She had only just stepped outside when she turned back to say that
Augustine was at the end of the street, sliding on the ice with some
urchins. The squint-eyed imp rushed in all red-faced and out of breath
with snow all in her hair. She didn't mind the scolding she received,
merely saying that she hadn't been able to walk fast because of the
ice and then some brats threw snow at her.

The afternoons were all the same these winter days. The laundry was
the refuge for anyone in the neighborhood who was cold. There was an
endless procession of gossiping women. Gervaise took pride in the
comforting warmth of her shop and welcomed those who came in, "holding
a salon," as the Lorilleuxs and the Boches remarked meanly.

Gervaise was always thoughtful and generous. Sometimes she even
invited poor people in if she saw them shivering outside. A friendship
sprang up with an elderly house-painter who was seventy. He lived in
an attic room and was slowly dying of cold and hunger. His three sons
had been killed in the war. He survived the best he could, but it had
been two years since he had been able to hold a paint-brush in his
hand. Whenever Gervaise saw Pere Bru walking outside, she would call
him in and arrange a place for him close to the stove. Often she gave
him some bread and cheese. Pere Bru's face was as wrinkled as a
withered apple. He would sit there, with his stooping shoulders and
his white beard, without saying a word, just listening to the coke
sputtering in the stove. Maybe he was thinking of his fifty years of
hard work on high ladders, his fifty years spent painting doors and
whitewashing ceilings in every corner of Paris.

"Well, Pere Bru," Gervaise would say, "what are you thinking of now?"

"Nothing much. All sorts of things," he would answer quietly.

The workwomen tried to joke with him to cheer him up, saying he was
worrying over his love affairs, but he scarcely listened to them
before he fell back into his habitual attitude of meditative
melancholy.

Virginie now frequently spoke to Gervaise of Lantier. She seemed to
find amusement in filling her mind with ideas of her old lover just
for the pleasure of embarrassing her by making suggestions. One day
she related that she had met him; then, as the laundress took no
notice, she said nothing further, and it was only on the morrow that
she added he had spoken about her for a long time, and with a great
show of affection. Gervaise was much upset by these reports whispered
in her ear in a corner of the shop. The mention of Lantier's name
always caused a worried sensation in the pit of her stomach. She
certainly thought herself strong; she wished to lead the life of an
industrious woman, because labor is the half of happiness. So she
never considered Coupeau in this matter, having nothing to reproach
herself with as regarded her husband, not even in her thoughts. But
with a hesitating and suffering heart, she would think of the
blacksmith. It seemed to her that the memory of Lantier--that slow
possession which she was resuming--rendered her unfaithful to Goujet,
to their unavowed love, sweet as friendship. She passed sad days
whenever she felt herself guilty towards her good friend. She would
have liked to have had no affection for anyone but him outside of her
family. It was a feeling far above all carnal thoughts, for the signs
of which upon her burning face Virginie was ever on the watch.

As soon as spring came Gervaise often went and sought refuge with
Goujet. She could no longer sit musing on a chair without immediately
thinking of her first lover; she pictured him leaving Adele, packing
his clothes in the bottom of their old trunk, and returning to her in
a cab. The days when she went out, she was seized with the most
foolish fears in the street; she was ever thinking she heard Lantier's
footsteps behind her. She did not dare turn round, but tremblingly
fancied she felt his hands seizing her round the waist. He was, no
doubt, spying upon her; he would appear before her some afternoon; and
the bare idea threw her into a cold perspiration, because he would to
a certainty kiss her on the ear, as he used to do in former days
solely to tease her. It was this kiss which frightened her; it
rendered her deaf beforehand; it filled her with a buzzing amidst
which she could only distinguish the sound of her heart beating
violently. So, as soon as these fears seized upon her, the forge was
her only shelter; there, under Goujet's protection, she once more
became easy and smiling, as his sonorous hammer drove away her
disagreeable reflections.

What a happy time! The laundress took particular pains with the
washing of her customer in the Rue des Portes-Blanches; she always
took it home herself because that errand, every Friday, was a ready
excuse for passing through the Rue Marcadet and looking in at the
forge. The moment she turned the corner of the street she felt light
and gay, as though in the midst of those plots of waste land
surrounded by grey factories, she were out in the country; the roadway
black with coal-dust, the plumage of steam over the roofs, amused her
as much as a moss-covered path leading through masses of green foliage
in a wood in the environs; and she loved the dull horizon, streaked by
the tall factory-chimneys, the Montmartre heights, which hid the
heavens from view, the chalky white houses pierced with the uniform
openings of their windows. She would slacken her steps as she drew
near, jumping over the pools of water, and finding a pleasure in
traversing the deserted ins and outs of the yard full of old building
materials. Right at the further end the forge shone with a brilliant
light, even at mid-day. Her heart leapt with the dance of the hammers.
When she entered, her face turned quite red, the little fair hairs at
the nape of her neck flew about like those of a woman arriving at some
lovers' meeting. Goujet was expecting her, his arms and chest bare,
whilst he hammered harder on the anvil on those days so as to make
himself heard at a distance. He divined her presence, and greeted her
with a good silent laugh in his yellow beard. But she would not let
him leave off his work; she begged him to take up his hammer again,
because she loved him the more when he wielded it with his big arms
swollen with muscles. She would go and give Etienne a gentle tap on
the cheek, as he hung on to the bellows, and then remain for an hour
watching the rivets.

The two did not exchange a dozen words. They could not have more
completely satisfied their love if alone in a room with the door
double-locked. The snickering of Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-
without-Thirst, did not bother them in the least, for they no longer
even heard him. At the end of a quarter of an hour she would begin to
feel slightly oppressed; the heat, the powerful smell, the ascending
smoke, made her dizzy, whilst the dull thuds of the hammers shook her
from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet. Then she desired
nothing more; it was her pleasure. Had Goujet pressed her in his arms
it would not have procured her so sweet an emotion. She drew close to
him that she might feel the wind raised by his hammer beat upon her
cheek, and become, as it were, a part of the blow he struck. When the
sparks made her soft hands smart, she did not withdraw them; on the
contrary, she enjoyed the rain of fire which stung her skin. He for
certain, divined the happiness which she tasted there; he always kept
the most difficult work for the Fridays, so as to pay his court to her
with all his strength and all his skill; he no longer spared himself
at the risk of splitting the anvils in two, as he panted and his loins
vibrated with the joy he was procuring her. All one spring-time their
love thus filled Goujet with the rumbling of a storm. It was an idyll
amongst giant-like labor in the midst of the glare of the coal fire,
and of the shaking of the shed, the cracking carcass of which was
black with soot. All that beaten iron, kneaded like red wax, preserved
the rough marks of their love. When on the Fridays the laundress
parted from Golden-Mug, she slowly reascended the Rue des
Poissonniers, contented and tired, her mind and her body alike
tranquil.

Little by little, her fear of Lantier diminished; her good sense got
the better of her. At that time she would still have led a happy life,
had it not been for Coupeau, who was decidedly going to the bad. One
day she just happened to be returning from the forge, when she fancied
she recognized Coupeau inside Pere Colombe's l'Assommoir, in the act
of treating himself to a round of vitriol in the company of My-Boots,
Bibi-the-Smoker, and Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst. She
passed quickly by, so as not to seem to be spying on them. But she
glanced back; it was indeed Coupeau who was tossing his little glass
of bad brandy down his throat with a gesture already familiar. He lied
then; so he went in for brandy now! She returned home in despair; all
her old dread of brandy took possession of her. She forgave the wine,
because wine nourishes the workman; all kinds of spirit, on the
contrary, were filth, poisons which destroyed in the workman the taste
for bread. Ah! the government ought to prevent the manufacture of such
horrid stuff!

On arriving at the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, she found the whole house
upset. Her workwomen had left the shop, and were in the courtyard
looking up above. She questioned Clemence.

"It's old Bijard who's giving his wife a hiding," replied the ironer.
"He was in the doorway, as drunk as a trooper, watching for her return
from the wash-house. He whacked her up the stairs, and now he's
finishing her off up there in their room. Listen, can't you hear her
shrieks?"

Gervaise hastened to the spot. She felt some friendship for her
washer-woman, Madame Bijard, who was a very courageous woman. She had
hoped to put a stop to what was going on. Upstairs, on the sixth floor
the door of the room was wide open, some lodgers were shouting on the
landing, whilst Madame Boche, standing in front of the door, was
calling out:

"Will you leave off? I shall send for the police; do you hear?"

No one dared to venture inside the room, because it was known that
Bijard was like a brute beast when he was drunk. As a matter of fact,
he was scarcely ever sober. The rare days on which he worked, he
placed a bottle of brandy beside his blacksmith's vise, gulping some
of it down every half hour. He could not keep himself going any other
way. He would have blazed away like a torch if anyone had placed a
lighted match close to his mouth.

"But we mustn't let her be murdered!" said Gervaise, all in a tremble.

And she entered. The room, an attic, and very clean, was bare and
cold, almost emptied by the drunken habits of the man, who took the
very sheets from the bed to turn them into liquor. During the struggle
the table had rolled away to the window, the two chairs, knocked over,
had fallen with their legs in the air. In the middle of the room, on
the tile floor, lay Madame Bijard, all bloody, her skirts, still
soaked with the water of the wash-house, clinging to her thighs, her
hair straggling in disorder. She was breathing heavily, with a rattle
in her throat, as she muttered prolonged ohs! each time she received a
blow from the heel of Bijard's boot. He had knocked her down with his
fists, and now he stamped upon her.

"Ah, strumpet! Ah, strumpet! Ah strumpet!" grunted he in a choking
voice, accompanying each blow with the word, taking a delight in
repeating it, and striking all the harder the more he found his voice
failing him.

Then when he could no longer speak, he madly continued to kick with a
dull sound, rigid in his ragged blue blouse and overalls, his face
turned purple beneath his dirty beard, and his bald forehead streaked
with big red blotches. The neighbors on the landing related that he
was beating her because she had refused him twenty sous that morning.
Boche's voice was heard at the foot of the staircase. He was calling
Madame Boche, saying:

"Come down; let them kill each other, it'll be so much scum the less."

Meanwhile, Pere Bru had followed Gervaise into the room. Between them
they were trying to get him towards the door. But he turned round,
speechless and foaming at the lips, and in his pale eyes the alcohol
was blazing with a murderous glare. The laundress had her wrist
injured; the old workman was knocked against the table. On the floor,
Madame Bijard was breathing with greater difficulty, her mouth wide
open, her eyes closed. Now Bijard kept missing her. He had madly
returned to the attack, but blinded by rage, his blows fell on either
side, and at times he almost fell when his kicks went into space. And
during all this onslaught, Gervaise beheld in a corner of the room
little Lalie, then four years old, watching her father murdering her
mother. The child held in her arms, as though to protect her, her
sister Henriette, only recently weaned. She was standing up, her head
covered with a cotton cap, her face very pale and grave. Her large
black eyes gazed with a fixedness full of thought and were without a
tear.

When at length Bijard, running against a chair, stumbled onto the
tiled floor, where they left him snoring, Pere Bru helped Gervaise to
raise Madame Bijard. The latter was now sobbing bitterly; and Lalie,
drawing near, watched her crying, being used to such sights and
already resigned to them. As the laundress descended the stairs, in
the silence of the now quieted house, she kept seeing before her that
look of this child of four, as grave and courageous as that of a
woman.

"Monsieur Coupeau is on the other side of the street," called out
Clemence as soon as she caught sight of her. "He looks awfully drunk."

Coupeau was just then crossing the street. He almost smashed a pane of
glass with his shoulder as he missed the door. He was in a state of
complete drunkenness, with his teeth clinched and his nose inflamed.
And Gervaise at once recognized the vitriol of l'Assommoir in the
poisoned blood which paled his skin. She tried to joke and get him to
bed, the same as on the days when the wine had made him merry; but he
pushed her aside without opening his lips, and raised his fist in
passing as he went to bed of his own accord. He made Gervaise think of
the other--the drunkard who was snoring upstairs, tired out by the
blows he had struck. A cold shiver passed over her. She thought of the
men she knew--of her husband, of Goujet, of Lantier--her heart
breaking, despairing of ever being happy.



                             CHAPTER VII.

Gervaise's saint's day fell on the 19th of June. On such occasions,
the Coupeaus always made a grand display; they feasted till they were
as round as balls, and their stomachs were filled for the rest of the
week. There was a complete clear out of all the money they had. The
moment there were a few sous in the house they went in gorging. They
invented saints for those days which the almanac had not provided with
any, just for the sake of giving themselves a pretext for
gormandizing. Virginie highly commended Gervaise for stuffing herself
with all sorts of savory dishes. When one has a husband who turns all
he can lay hands on into drink, it's good to line one's stomach well,
and not to let everything go off in liquids. Since the money would
disappear anyway, surely it was better to pay it to the butcher.
Gervaise used that excuse to justify overeating, saying it was
Coupeau's fault if they could no longer save a sou. She had grown
considerably fatter, and she limped more than before because her leg,
now swollen with fat, seemed to be getting gradually shorter.

That year they talked about her saint's day a good month beforehand.
They thought of dishes and smacked their lips in advance. All the shop
had a confounded longing to junket. They wanted a merry-making of the
right sort--something out of the ordinary and highly successful. One
does not have so many opportunities for enjoyment. What most troubled
the laundress was to decide whom to invite; she wished to have twelve
persons at table, no more, no less. She, her husband, mother Coupeau,
and Madame Lerat, already made four members of the family. She would
also have the Goujets and the Poissons. Originally, she had decided
not to invite her workwomen, Madame Putois and Clemence, so as not to
make them too familiar; but as the projected feast was being
constantly spoken of in their presence, and their mouths watered, she
ended by telling them to come. Four and four, eight, and two are ten.
Then, wishing particularly to have twelve, she became reconciled with
the Lorilleuxs, who for some time past had been hovering around her;
at least it was agreed that the Lorilleuxs should come to dinner, and
that peace should be made with glasses in hand. You really shouldn't
keep family quarrels going forever. When the Boches heard that a
reconciliation was planned, they also sought to make up with Gervaise,
and so they had to be invited to the dinner too. That would make
fourteen, not counting the children. Never before had she given such a
large dinner and the thought frightened and excited her at the same
time.

The saint's day happened to fall on a Monday. It was a piece of luck.
Gervaise counted on the Sunday afternoon to begin the cooking. On the
Saturday, whilst the workwomen hurried with their work, there was a
long discussion in the shop with the view of finally deciding upon
what the feast should consist of. For three weeks past one thing alone
had been chosen--a fat roast goose. There was a gluttonous look on
every face whenever it was mentioned. The goose was even already
bought. Mother Coupeau went and fetched it to let Clemence and Madame
Putois feel its weight. And they uttered all kinds of exclamations; it
looked such an enormous bird, with its rough skin all swelled out with
yellow fat.

"Before that there will be the pot-au-feu," said Gervaise, "the soup
and just a small piece of boiled beef, it's always good. Then we must
have something in the way of a stew."

Tall Clemence suggested rabbit, but they were always having that,
everyone was sick of it. Gervaise wanted something more distinguished.
Madame Putois having spoken of stewed veal, they looked at one another
with broad smiles. It was a real idea, nothing would make a better
impression than a veal stew.

"And after that," resumed Gervaise, "we must have some other dish with
a sauce."

Mother Coupeau proposed fish. But the others made a grimace, as they
banged down their irons. None of them liked fish; it was not a bit
satisfying; and besides that it was full of bones. Squint-eyed
Augustine, having dared to observe that she liked skate, Clemence shut
her mouth for her with a good sound clout. At length the mistress
thought of stewed pig's back and potatoes, which restored the smiles
to every countenance. Then Virginie entered like a puff of wind, with
a strange look on her face.

"You've come just at the right time!" exclaimed Gervaise. "Mother
Coupeau, do show her the bird."

And mother Coupeau went a second time and fetched the goose, which
Virginie had to take in her hands. She uttered no end of exclamations.
By Jove! It was heavy! But she soon laid it down on the work-table,
between a petticoat and a bundle of shirts. Her thoughts were
elsewhere. She dragged Gervaise into the back-room.

"I say, little one," murmured she rapidly, "I've come to warn you.
You'll never guess who I just met at the corner of the street.
Lantier, my dear! He's hovering about on the watch; so I hastened here
at once. It frightened me on your account, you know."

The laundress turned quite pale. What could the wretched man want with
her? Coming, too, like that, just in the midst of the preparations for
the feast. She had never had any luck; she could not even be allowed
to enjoy herself quietly. But Virginie replied that she was very
foolish to put herself out about it like that. Why! If Lantier dared
to follow her about, all she had to do was to call a policeman and
have him locked up. In the month since her husband had been appointed
a policeman, Virginie had assumed rather lordly manners and talked of
arresting everybody. She began to raise her voice, saying that she
wished some passer-by would pinch her bottom so that she could take
the fresh fellow to the police station herself and turn him over to
her husband. Gervaise signaled her to be quiet since the workwomen
were listening and led the way back into the shop, reopening the
discussion about the dinner.

"Now, don't we need a vegetable?"

"Why not peas with bacon?" said Virginie. "I like nothing better."

"Yes, peas with bacon." The others approved. Augustine was so
enthusiastic that she jabbed the poker into the stove harder than
ever.

By three o'clock on the morrow, Sunday, mother Coupeau had lighted
their two stoves and also a third one of earthenware which they had
borrowed from the Boches. At half-past three the pot-au-feu was
boiling away in an enormous earthenware pot lent by the eating-house
keeper next door, the family pot having been found too small. They had
decided to cook the veal and the pig's back the night before, since
both of those dishes are better when reheated. But the cream sauce for
the veal would not be prepared until just before sitting down for the
feast.

There was still plenty of work left for Monday: the soup, the peas
with bacon, the roast goose. The inner room was lit by three fires.
Butter was sizzling in the pans and emitting a sharp odor of burnt
flour.

Mother Coupeau and Gervaise, with white aprons tied on, were bustling
all around, cleaning parsley, dashing for salt and pepper, turning the
meat. They had sent Coupeau away so as not to have him underfoot, but
they still had plenty of people looking in throughout the afternoon.
The luscious smells from the kitchen had spread through the entire
building so that neighboring ladies came into the shop on various
pretexts, very curious to see what was being cooked.

Virginie put in an appearance towards five o'clock. She had again seen
Lantier; really, it was impossible to go down the street now without
meeting him. Madame Boche also had just caught sight of him standing
at the corner of the pavement with his head thrust forward in an
uncommonly sly manner. Then Gervaise who had at that moment intended
going for a sou's worth of burnt onions for the pot-au-feu, began to
tremble from head to foot and did not dare leave the house; the more
so, as the concierge and the dressmaker put her into a terrible fright
by relating horrible stories of men waiting for women with knives and
pistols hidden beneath their overcoats. Well, yes! one reads of such
things every day in the newspapers. When one of those scoundrels gets
his monkey up on discovering an old love leading a happy life he
becomes capable of everything. Virginie obligingly offered to run and
fetch the burnt onions. Women should always help one another, they
could not let that little thing be murdered. When she returned she
said that Lantier was no longer there; he had probably gone off on
finding he was discovered. In spite of that thought, he was the
subject of conversation around the saucepans until night-time. When
Madame Boche advised her to inform Coupeau, Gervaise became really
terrified, and implored her not to say a word about it. Oh, yes,
wouldn't that be a nice situation! Her husband must have become
suspicious already because for the last few days, at night, he would
swear to himself and bang the wall with his fists. The mere thought
that the two men might destroy each other because of her made her
shudder. She knew that Coupeau was jealous enough to attack Lantier
with his shears.

While the four of them had been deep in contemplating this drama, the
saucepans on the banked coals of the stoves had been quietly
simmering. When mother Coupeau lifted the lids, the veal and the pig's
back were discreetly bubbling. The pot-au-feu was steadily steaming
with snore-like sounds. Eventually each of them dipped a piece of
bread into the soup to taste the bouillon.

At length Monday arrived. Now that Gervaise was going to have fourteen
persons at table, she began to fear that she would not be able to find
room for them all. She decided that they should dine in the shop; and
the first thing in the morning she took measurements so as to settle
which way she should place the table. After that they had to remove
all the clothes and take the ironing-table to pieces; the top of this
laid on to some shorter trestles was to be the dining-table. But just
in the midst of all this moving a customer appeared and made a scene
because she had been waiting for her washing ever since the Friday;
they were humbugging her, she would have her things at once. Then
Gervaise tried to excuse herself and lied boldly; it was not her
fault, she was cleaning out her shop, the workmen would not be there
till the morrow; and she pacified her customer and got rid of her by
promising to busy herself with her things at the earliest possible
moment. Then, as soon as the woman had left, she showed her temper.
Really, if you listened to all your customers, you'd never have time
to eat. You could work yourself to death like a dog on a leash! Well!
No matter who came in to-day, even if they offered one hundred
thousand francs, she wouldn't touch an iron on this Monday, because it
was her turn to enjoy herself.

The entire morning was spent in completing the purchases. Three times
Gervaise went out and returned laden like a mule. But just as she was
going to order wine she noticed that she had not sufficient money
left. She could easily have got it on credit; only she could not be
without money in the house, on account of the thousand little expenses
that one is liable to forget. And mother Coupeau and she had lamented
together in the back-room as they reckoned that they required at least
twenty francs. How could they obtain them, those four pieces of a
hundred sous each? Mother Coupeau who had at one time done the
charring for a little actress of the Theatre des Batignolles, was the
first to suggest the pawn-shop. Gervaise laughed with relief. How
stupid she was not to have thought of it! She quickly folded her black
silk dress upon a towel which she then pinned together. Then she hid
the bundle under mother Coupeau's apron, telling her to keep it very
flat against her stomach, on account of the neighbors who had no need
to know; and she went and watched at the door to see that the old
woman was not followed. But the latter had only gone as far as the
charcoal dealer's when she called her back.

"Mamma! Mamma!"

She made her return to the shop, and taking her wedding-ring off her
finger said:

"Here, put this with it. We shall get all the more."

When mother Coupeau brought her twenty-five francs, she danced for
joy. She would order an extra six bottles of wine, sealed wine to
drink with the roast. The Lorilleuxs would be crushed.

For a fortnight past it had been the Coupeaus' dream to crush the
Lorilleuxs. Was it not true that those sly ones, the man and his wife,
a truly pretty couple, shut themselves up whenever they had anything
nice to eat as though they had stolen it? Yes, they covered up the
window with a blanket to hide the light and make believe that they
were already asleep in bed. This stopped anyone from coming up, and so
the Lorilleuxs could stuff everything down, just the two of them. They
were even careful the next day not to throw the bones into the garbage
so that no one would know what they had eaten. Madame Lorilleux would
walk to the end of the street to toss them into a sewer opening. One
morning Gervaise surprised her emptying a basket of oyster shells
there. Oh, those penny-pinchers were never open-handed, and all their
mean contrivances came from their desire to appear to be poor. Well,
we'd show them, we'd prove to them what we weren't mean.

Gervaise would have laid her table in the street, had she been able
to, just for the sake of inviting each passer-by. Money was not
invented that it should be allowed to grow moldy, was it? It is
pretty when it shines all new in the sunshine. She resembled them so
little now, that on the days when she had twenty sous she arranged
things to let people think that she had forty.

Mother Coupeau and Gervaise talked of the Lorilleuxs whilst they laid
the cloth about three o'clock. They had hung some big curtains at the
windows; but as it was very warm the door was left open and the whole
street passed in front of the little table. The two women did not
place a decanter, or a bottle, or a salt-cellar, without trying to
arrange them in such a way as to annoy the Lorilleuxs. They had
arranged their seats so as to give them a full view of the superbly
laid cloth, and they had reserved the best crockery for them, well
knowing that the porcelain plates would create a great effect.

"No, no, mamma," cried Gervaise; "don't give them those napkins! I've
two damask ones."

"Ah, good!" murmured the old woman; "that'll break their hearts,
that's certain."

And they smiled to each other as they stood up on either side of that
big white table on which the fourteen knives and forks, placed all
round, caused them to swell with pride. It had the appearance of the
altar of some chapel in the middle of the shop.

"That's because they're so stingy themselves!" resumed Gervaise. "You
know they lied last month when the woman went about everywhere saying
that she had lost a piece of gold chain as she was taking the work
home. The idea! There's no fear of her ever losing anything! It was
simply a way of making themselves out very poor and of not giving you
your five francs."

"As yet I've only seen my five francs twice," said mother Coupeau.

"I'll bet next month they'll concoct some other story. That explains
why they cover their window up when they have a rabbit to eat. Don't
you see? One would have the right to say to them: 'As you can afford a
rabbit you can certainly give five francs to your mother!' Oh! they're
just rotten! What would have become of you if I hadn't taken you to
live with us?"

Mother Coupeau slowly shook her head. That day she was all against the
Lorilleuxs, because of the great feast the Coupeaus were giving. She
loved cooking, the little gossipings round the saucepans, the place
turned topsy-turvy by the revels of saints' days. Besides she
generally got on pretty well with Gervaise. On other days when they
plagued one another as happens in all families, the old woman grumbled
saying she was wretchedly unfortunate in thus being at her daughter-
in-law's mercy. In point of fact she probably had some affection for
Madame Lorilleux who after all was her daughter.

"Ah!" continued Gervaise, "you wouldn't be so fat, would you, if you
were living with them? And no coffee, no snuff, no little luxuries of
any sort! Tell me, would they have given you two mattresses to your
bed?"

"No, that's very certain," replied mother Coupeau. "When they arrive I
shall place myself so as to have a good view of the door to see the
faces they'll make."

Thinking of the faces they would make gave them pleasure ahead of
time. However, they couldn't remain standing there admiring the table.
The Coupeaus had lunched very late on just a bite or two, because the
stoves were already in use, and because they did not want to dirty any
dishes needed for the evening. By four o'clock the two women were
working very hard. The huge goose was being cooked on a spit. Squint-
eyed Augustine was sitting on a low bench solemnly basting the goose
with a long-handled spoon. Gervaise was busy with the peas with bacon.
Mother Coupeau, kept spinning around, a bit confused, waiting for the
right time to begin reheating the pork and the veal.

Towards five o'clock the guests began to arrive. First of all came the
two workwomen, Clemence and Madame Putois, both in their Sunday best,
the former in blue, the latter in black; Clemence carried a geranium,
Madame Putois a heliotrope, and Gervaise, whose hands were just then
smothered with flour, had to kiss each of them on both cheeks with her
arms behind her back. Then following close upon their heels entered
Virginie dressed like a lady in a printed muslin costume with a sash
and a bonnet though she had only a few steps to come. She brought a
pot of red carnations. She took the laundress in her big arms and
squeezed her tight. At length Boche appeared with a pot of pansies and
Madame Boche with a pot of mignonette; then came Madame Lerat with a
balm-mint, the pot of which had dirtied her violet merino dress. All
these people kissed each other and gathered together in the back-room
in the midst of the three stoves and the roasting apparatus, which
gave out a stifling heat. The noise from the saucepans drowned the
voices. A dress catching in the Dutch oven caused quite an emotion.
The smell of roast goose was so strong that it made their mouths
water. And Gervaise was very pleasant, thanking everyone for their
flowers without however letting that interfere with her preparing the
thickening for the stewed veal at the bottom of a soup plate. She had
placed the pots in the shop at one end of the table without removing
the white paper that was round them. A sweet scent of flowers mingled
with the odor of cooking.

"Do you want any assistance?" asked Virginie. "Just fancy, you've been
three days preparing all this feast and it will be gobbled up in no
time."

"Well, you know," replied Gervaise, "it wouldn't prepare itself. No,
don't dirty your hands. You see everything's ready. There's only the
soup to warm."

Then they all made themselves comfortable. The ladies laid their
shawls and their caps on the bed and pinned up their skirts so as not
to soil them. Boche sent his wife back to the concierge's lodge until
time to eat and had cornered Clemence in a corner trying to find out
if she was ticklish. She was gasping for breath, as the mere thought
of being tickled sent shivers through her. So as not to bother the
cooks, the other ladies had gone into the shop and were standing
against the wall facing the table. They were talking through the door
though, and as they could not hear very well, they were continually
invading the back-room and crowding around Gervaise, who would forget
what she was doing to answer them.

There were a few stories which brought sly laughter. When Virginie
mentioned that she hadn't eaten for two days in order to have more
room for today's feast, tall Clemence said that she had cleaned
herself out that morning with an enema like the English do. Then Boche
suggested a way of digesting the food quickly by squeezing oneself
after each course, another English custom. After all, when you were
invited to dinner, wasn't it polite to eat as much as you could? Veal
and pork and goose are placed out for the cats to eat. The hostess
didn't need to worry a bit, they were going to clean their plates so
thoroughly that she wouldn't have to wash them.

All of them kept coming to smell the air above the saucepans and the
roaster. The ladies began to act like young girls, scurrying from room
to room and pushing each other.

Just as they were all jumping about and shouting by way of amusement,
Goujet appeared. He was so timid he scarcely dared enter, but stood
still, holding a tall white rose-tree in his arms, a magnificent plant
with a stem that reached to his face and entangled the flowers in his
beard. Gervaise ran to him, her cheeks burning from the heat of the
stoves. But he did not know how to get rid of his pot; and when she
had taken it from his hands he stammered, not daring to kiss her. It
was she who was obliged to stand on tip-toe and place her cheek
against his lips; he was so agitated that even then he kissed her
roughly on the eye almost blinding her. They both stood trembling.

"Oh! Monsieur Goujet, it's too lovely!" said she, placing the rose-
tree beside the other flowers which it overtopped with the whole of
its tuft of foliage.

"Not at all, not at all!" repeated he, unable to say anything else.

Then, after sighing deeply, he slightly recovered himself and stated
that she was not to expect his mother; she was suffering from an
attack of sciatica. Gervaise was greatly grieved; she talked of
putting a piece of the goose on one side as she particularly wished
Madame Goujet to have a taste of the bird. No one else was expected.
Coupeau was no doubt strolling about in the neighborhood with Poisson
whom he had called for directly after his lunch; they would be home
directly, they had promised to be back punctually at six. Then as the
soup was almost ready, Gervaise called to Madame Lerat, saying that
she thought it was time to go and fetch the Lorilleuxs. Madame Lerat
became at once very grave; it was she who had conducted all the
negotiations and who had settled how everything should pass between
the two families. She put her cap and shawl on again and went upstairs
very stiffly in her skirts, looking very stately. Down below the
laundress continued to stir her vermicelli soup without saying a word.
The guests suddenly became serious and solemnly waited.

It was Madame Lerat who appeared first. She had gone round by the
street so as to give more pomp to the reconciliation. She held the
shop-door wide open whilst Madame Lorilleux, wearing a silk dress,
stopped at the threshold. All the guests had risen from their seats;
Gervaise went forward and kissing her sister-in-law as had been
agreed, said:

"Come in. It's all over, isn't it? We'll both be nice to each other."

And Madame Lorilleux replied:

"I shall be only too happy if we're so always."

When she had entered Lorilleux also stopped at the threshold and he
likewise waited to be embraced before penetrating into the shop.
Neither the one nor the other had brought a bouquet. They had decided
not to do so as they thought it would look too much like giving way to
Clump-Clump if they carried flowers with them the first time they set
foot in her home. Gervaise called to Augustine to bring two bottles of
wine. Then, filling some glasses on a corner of the table, she called
everyone to her. And each took a glass and drank to the good
friendship of the family. There was a pause whilst the guests were
drinking, the ladies raising their elbows and emptying their glasses
to the last drop.

"Nothing is better before soup," declared Boche, smacking his lips.

Mother Coupeau had placed herself opposite the door to see the faces
the Lorilleuxs would make. She pulled Gervaise by the skirt and
dragged her into the back-room. And as they both leant over the soup
they conversed rapidly in a low voice.

"Huh! What a sight!" said the old woman. "You couldn't see them; but I
was watching. When she caught sight of the table her face twisted
around like that, the corners of her mouth almost touched her eyes;
and as for him, it nearly choked him, he coughed and coughed. Now just
look at them over there; they've no saliva left in their mouths,
they're chewing their lips."

"It's quite painful to see people as jealous as that," murmured
Gervaise.

Really the Lorilleuxs had a funny look about them. No one of course
likes to be crushed; in families especially when the one succeeds, the
others do not like it; that is only natural. Only one keeps it in, one
does not make an exhibition of oneself. Well! The Lorilleuxs could not
keep it in. It was more than a match for them. They squinted--their
mouths were all on one side. In short it was so apparent that the
other guests looked at them, and asked them if they were unwell. Never
would they be able to stomach this table with its fourteen place-
settings, its white linen table cloth, its slices of bread cut in
advance, all in the style of a first-class restaurant. Mme. Lorilleux
went around the table, surreptitiously fingering the table cloth,
tortured by the thought that it was a new one.

"Everything's ready!" cried Gervaise as she reappeared with a smile,
her arms bare and her little fair curls blowing over her temples.

"If the boss would only come," resumed the laundress, "we might
begin."

"Ah, well!" said Madame Lorilleux, "the soup will be cold by then.
Coupeau always forgets. You shouldn't have let him go off."

It was already half-past six. Everything was burning now; the goose
would be overdone. Then Gervaise, feeling quite dejected, talked of
sending someone to all the wineshops in the neighborhood to find
Coupeau. And as Goujet offered to go, she decided to accompany him.
Virginie, anxious about her husband went also. The three of them,
bareheaded, quite blocked up the pavement. The blacksmith who wore his
frock-coat, had Gervaise on his left arm and Virginie on his right; he
was doing the two-handled basket as he said; and it seemed to them
such a funny thing to say that they stopped, unable to move their legs
for laughing. They looked at themselves in the pork-butcher's glass
and laughed more than ever. Beside Goujet, all in black, the two women
looked like two speckled hens--the dressmaker in her muslin costume,
sprinkled with pink flowers, the laundress in her white cambric dress
with blue spots, her wrists bare, and wearing round her neck a little
grey silk scarf tied in a bow. People turned round to see them pass,
looking so fresh and lively, dressed in their Sunday best on a week
day and jostling the crowd which hung about the Rue des Poissonniers,
on that warm June evening. But it was not a question of amusing
themselves. They went straight to the door of each wineshop, looked
in and sought amongst the people standing before the counter. Had that
animal Coupeau gone to the Arc de Triomphe to get his dram? They had
already done the upper part of the street, looking in at all the
likely places; at the "Little Civet," renowned for its preserved
plums; at old mother Baquet's, who sold Orleans wine at eight sous; at
the "Butterfly," the coachmen's house of call, gentlemen who were not
easy to please. But no Coupeau. Then as they were going down towards
the Boulevard, Gervaise uttered a faint cry on passing the eating-
house at the corner kept by Francois.

"What's the matter?" asked Goujet.

The laundress no longer laughed. She was very pale, and laboring under
so great an emotion that she had almost fallen. Virginie understood it
all as she caught a sight of Lantier seated at one of Francois's
tables quietly dining. The two women dragged the blacksmith along.

"My ankle twisted," said Gervaise as soon as she was able to speak.

At length they discovered Coupeau and Poisson at the bottom of the
street inside Pere Colombe's l'Assommoir. They were standing up in the
midst of a number of men; Coupeau, in a grey blouse, was shouting with
furious gestures and banging his fists down on the counter. Poisson,
not on duty that day and buttoned up in an old brown coat, was
listening to him in a dull sort of way and without uttering a word,
bristling his carroty moustaches and beard the while. Goujet left the
women on the edge of the pavement, and went and laid his hand on the
zinc-worker's shoulder. But when the latter caught sight of Gervaise
and Virginie outside he grew angry. Why was he badgered with such
females as those? Petticoats had taken to tracking him about now!
Well! He declined to stir, they could go and eat their beastly dinner
all by themselves. To quiet him Goujet was obliged to accept a drop of
something; and even then Coupeau took a fiendish delight in dawdling a
good five minutes at the counter. When he at length came out he said
to his wife:

"I don't like this. It's my business where I go. Do you understand?"

She did not answer. She was all in a tremble. She must have said
something about Lantier to Virginie, for the latter pushed her husband
and Goujet ahead, telling them to walk in front. The two women got on
each side of Coupeau to keep him occupied and prevent him seeing
Lantier. He wasn't really drunk, being more intoxicated from shouting
than from drinking. Since they seemed to want to stay on the left
side, to tease them, he crossed over to the other side of the street.
Worried, they ran after him and tried to block his view of the door of
Francois's. But Coupeau must have known that Lantier was there.
Gervaise almost went out of her senses on hearing him grunt:

"Yes, my duck, there's a young fellow of our acquaintance inside
there! You mustn't take me for a ninny. Don't let me catch you
gallivanting about again with your side glances!"

And he made use of some very coarse expressions. It was not him that
she had come to look for with her bare elbows and her mealy mouth; it
was her old beau. Then he was suddenly seized with a mad rage against
Lantier. Ah! the brigand! Ah! the filthy hound! One or the other of
them would have to be left on the pavement, emptied of his guts like a
rabbit. Lantier, however, did not appear to notice what was going on
and continued slowly eating some veal and sorrel. A crowd began to
form. Virginie led Coupeau away and he calmed down at once as soon as
he had turned the corner of the street. All the same they returned to
the shop far less lively than when they left it.

The guests were standing round the table with very long faces. The
zinc-worker shook hands with them, showing himself off before the
ladies. Gervaise, feeling rather depressed, spoke in a low voice as
she directed them to their places. But she suddenly noticed that, as
Madame Goujet had not come, a seat would remain empty--the one next to
Madame Lorilleux.

"We are thirteen!" said she, deeply affected, seeing in that a fresh
omen of the misfortune with which she had felt herself threatened for
some time past.

The ladies already seated rose up looking anxious and annoyed. Madame
Putois offered to retire because according to her it was not a matter
to laugh about; besides she would not touch a thing, the food would do
her no good. As to Boche, he chuckled. He would sooner be thirteen
than fourteen; the portions would be larger, that was all.

"Wait!" resumed Gervaise. "I can manage it."

And going out on to the pavement she called Pere Bru who was just then
crossing the roadway. The old workman entered, stooping and stiff and
his face without expression.

"Seat yourself there, my good fellow," said the laundress. "You won't
mind eating with us, will you?"

He simply nodded his head. He was willing; he did not mind.

"As well him as another," continued she, lowering her voice. "He
doesn't often eat his fill. He will at least enjoy himself once more.
We shall feel no remorse in stuffing ourselves now."

This touched Goujet so deeply that his eyes filled with tears. The
others were also moved by compassion and said that it would bring them
all good luck. However, Madame Lorilleux seemed unhappy at having the
old man next to her. She cast glances of disgust at his work-roughened
hands and his faded, patched smock, and drew away from him.

Pere Bru sat with his head bowed, waiting. He was bothered by the
napkin that was on the plate before him. Finally he lifted it off and
placed it gently on the edge of the table, not thinking to spread it
over his knees.

Now at last Gervaise served the vermicelli soup; the guests were
taking up their spoons when Virginie remarked that Coupeau had
disappeared. He had perhaps returned to Pere Colombe's. This time the
company got angry. So much the worse! One would not run after him; he
could stay in the street if he was not hungry; and as the spoons
touched the bottom of the plates, Coupeau reappeared with two pots of
flowers, one under each arm, a stock and a balsam. They all clapped
their hands. He gallantly placed the pots, one on the right, the other
on the left of Gervaise's glass; then bending over and kissing her, he
said:

"I had forgotten you, my lamb. But in spite of that, we love each
other all the same, especially on such a day as this."

"Monsieur Coupeau's very nice this evening," murmured Clemence in
Boche's ear. "He's just got what he required, sufficient to make him
amiable."

The good behavior of the master of the house restored the gaiety of
the proceedings, which at one moment had been compromised. Gervaise,
once more at her ease, was all smiles again. The guests finished their
soup. Then the bottles circulated and they drank their first glass of
wine, just a drop pure, to wash down the vermicelli. One could hear
the children quarrelling in the next room. There were Etienne,
Pauline, Nana and little Victor Fauconnier. It had been decided to lay
a table for the four of them, and they had been told to be very good.
That squint-eyed Augustine who had to look after the stoves was to eat
off her knees.

"Mamma! Mamma!" suddenly screamed Nana, "Augustine is dipping her
bread in the Dutch oven!"

The laundress hastened there and caught the squint-eyed one in the act
of burning her throat in her attempts to swallow without loss of time
a slice of bread soaked in boiling goose fat. She boxed her ears when
the young monkey called out that it was not true. When, after the
boiled beef, the stewed veal appeared, served in a salad-bowl, as they
did not have a dish large enough, the party greeted it with a laugh.

"It's becoming serious," declared Poisson, who seldom spoke.

It was half-past seven. They had closed the shop door, so as not to be
spied upon by the whole neighborhood; the little clockmaker opposite
especially was opening his eyes to their full size and seemed to take
the pieces from their mouths with such a gluttonous look that it
almost prevented them from eating. The curtains hung before the
windows admitted a great white uniform light which bathed the entire
table with its symmetrical arrangement of knives and forks and its
pots of flowers enveloped in tall collars of white paper; and this
pale fading light, this slowly approaching dusk, gave to the party
somewhat of an air of distinction. Virginie looked round the closed
apartment hung with muslin and with a happy criticism declared it to
be very cozy. Whenever a cart passed in the street the glasses jingled
together on the table cloth and the ladies were obliged to shout out
as loud as the men. But there was not much conversation; they all
behaved very respectably and were very attentive to each other.
Coupeau alone wore a blouse, because as he said one need not stand on
ceremony with friends and besides which the blouse was the workman's
garb of honor. The ladies, laced up in their bodices, wore their hair
in plaits greasy with pomatum in which the daylight was reflected;
whilst the gentlemen, sitting at a distance from the table, swelled
out their chests and kept their elbows wide apart for fear of staining
their frock coats.

Ah! thunder! What a hole they were making in the stewed veal! If they
spoke little, they were chewing in earnest. The salad-bowl was
becoming emptier and emptier with a spoon stuck in the midst of the
thick sauce--a good yellow sauce which quivered like a jelly. They
fished pieces of veal out of it and seemed as though they would never
come to the end; the salad-bowl journeyed from hand to hand and faces
bent over it as forks picked out the mushrooms. The long loaves
standing against the wall behind the guests appeared to melt away.
Between the mouthfuls one could hear the sound of glasses being
replaced on the table. The sauce was a trifle too salty. It required
four bottles of wine to drown that blessed stewed veal, which went
down like cream, but which afterwards lit up a regular conflagration
in one's stomach. And before one had time to take a breath, the pig's
back, in the middle of a deep dish surrounded by big round potatoes,
arrived in the midst of a cloud of smoke. There was one general cry.
By Jove! It was just the thing! Everyone liked it. They would do it
justice; and they followed the dish with a side glance as they wiped
their knives on their bread so as to be in readiness. Then as soon as
they were helped they nudged one another and spoke with their mouths
full. It was just like butter! Something sweet and solid which one
could feel run through one's guts right down into one's boots. The
potatoes were like sugar. It was not a bit salty; only, just on
account of the potatoes, it required a wetting every few minutes. Four
more bottles were placed on the table. The plates were wiped so clean
that they also served for the green peas and bacon. Oh! vegetables
were of no consequence. They playfully gulped them down in spoonfuls.
The best part of the dish was the small pieces of bacon just nicely
grilled and smelling like horse's hoof. Two bottles were sufficient
for them.

"Mamma! Mamma!" called out Nana suddenly, "Augustine's putting her
fingers in my plate!"

"Don't bother me! give her a slap!" replied Gervaise, in the act of
stuffing herself with green peas.

At the children's table in the back-room, Nana was playing the role of
lady of the house, sitting next to Victor and putting her brother
Etienne beside Pauline so they could play house, pretending they were
two married couples. Nana had served her guests very politely at
first, but now she had given way to her passion for grilled bacon,
trying to keep every piece for herself. While Augustine was prowling
around the children's table, she would grab the bits of bacon under
the pretext of dividing them amongst the children. Nana was so furious
that she bit Augustine on the wrist.

"Ah! you know," murmured Augustine, "I'll tell your mother that after
the veal you asked Victor to kiss you."

But all became quiet again as Gervaise and mother Coupeau came in to
get the goose. The guests at the big table were leaning back in their
chairs taking a breather. The men had unbuttoned their waistcoats, the
ladies were wiping their faces with their napkins. The repast was, so
to say, interrupted; only one or two persons, unable to keep their
jaws still, continued to swallow large mouthfuls of bread, without
even knowing that they were doing so. The others were waiting and
allowing their food to settle while waiting for the main course. Night
was slowly coming on; a dirty ashy grey light was gathering behind the
curtains. When Augustine brought two lamps and placed one at each end
of the table, the general disorder became apparent in the bright glare
--the greasy forks and plates, the table cloth stained with wine and
covered with crumbs. A strong stifling odor pervaded the room. Certain
warm fumes, however, attracted all the noses in the direction of the
kitchen.

"Can I help you?" cried Virginie.

She left her chair and passed into the inner room. All the women
followed one by one. They surrounded the Dutch oven, and watched with
profound interest as Gervaise and mother Coupeau tried to pull the
bird out. Then a clamor arose, in the midst of which one could
distinguish the shrill voices and the joyful leaps of the children.
And there was a triumphal entry. Gervaise carried the goose, her arms
stiff, and her perspiring face expanded in one broad silent laugh; the
women walked behind her, laughing in the same way; whilst Nana, right
at the end, raised herself up to see, her eyes open to their full
extent. When the enormous golden goose, streaming with gravy, was on
the table, they did not attack it at once. It was a wonder, a
respectful wonderment, which for a moment left everyone speechless.
They drew one another's attention to it with winks and nods of the
head. Golly! What a bird!

"That one didn't get fat by licking the walls, I'll bet!" said Boche.

Then they entered into details respecting the bird. Gervaise gave the
facts. It was the best she could get at the poulterer's in the
Faubourg Poissonniers; it weighed twelve and a half pounds on the
scales at the charcoal-dealer's; they had burnt nearly half a bushel
of charcoal in cooking it, and it had given three bowls full of
drippings.

Virginie interrupted her to boast of having seen it before it was
cooked. "You could have eaten it just as it was," she said, "its skin
was so fine, like the skin of a blonde." All the men laughed at this,
smacking their lips. Lorilleux and Madame Lorilleux sniffed
disdainfully, almost choking with rage to see such a goose on Clump-
Clump's table.

"Well! We can't eat it whole," the laundress observed. "Who'll cut it
up? No, no, not me! It's too big; I'm afraid of it."

Coupeau offered his services. /Mon Dieu!/ it was very simple. You
caught hold of the limbs, and pulled them off; the pieces were good
all the same. But the others protested; they forcibly took possession
of the large kitchen knife which the zinc-worker already held in his
hand, saying that whenever he carved he made a regular graveyard of
the platter. Finally, Madame Lerat suggested in a friendly tone:

"Listen, it should be Monsieur Poisson; yes, Monsieur Poisson."

But, as the others did not appear to understand, she added in a more
flattering manner still:

"Why, yes, of course, it should be Monsieur Poisson, who's accustomed
to the use of arms."

And she passed the kitchen knife to the policeman. All round the table
they laughed with pleasure and approval. Poisson bowed his head with
military stiffness, and moved the goose before him. When he thrust the
knife into the goose, which cracked, Lorilleux was seized with an
outburst of patriotism.

"Ah! if it was a Cossack!" he cried.

"Have you ever fought with Cossacks, Monsieur Poisson?" asked Madame
Boche.

"No, but I have with Bedouins," replied the policeman, who was cutting
off a wing. "There are no more Cossacks."

A great silence ensued. Necks were stretched out as every eye followed
the knife. Poisson was preparing a surprise. Suddenly he gave a last
cut; the hind-quarter of the bird came off and stood up on end, rump
in the air, making a bishop's mitre. Then admiration burst forth. None
were so agreeable in company as retired soldiers.

The policeman allowed several minutes for the company to admire the
bishop's mitre and then finished cutting the slices and arranging them
on the platter. The carving of the goose was now complete.

When the ladies complained that they were getting rather warm, Coupeau
opened the door to the street and the gaiety continued against the
background of cabs rattling down the street and pedestrians bustling
along the pavement. The goose was attacked furiously by the rested
jaws. Boche remarked that just having to wait and watch the goose
being carved had been enough to make the veal and pork slide down to
his ankles.

Then ensued a famous tuck-in; that is to say, not one of the party
recollected ever having before run the risk of such a stomach-ache.
Gervaise, looking enormous, her elbows on the table, ate great pieces
of breast, without uttering a word, for fear of losing a mouthful, and
merely felt slightly ashamed and annoyed at exhibiting herself thus,
as gluttonous as a cat before Goujet. Goujet, however, was too busy
stuffing himself to notice that she was all red with eating. Besides,
in spite of her greediness, she remained so nice and good! She did not
speak, but she troubled herself every minute to look after Pere Bru,
and place some dainty bit on his plate. It was even touching to see
this glutton take a piece of wing almost from her mouth to give it to
the old fellow, who did not appear to be very particular, and who
swallowed everything with bowed head, almost besotted from having
gobbled so much after he had forgotten the taste of bread. The
Lorilleuxs expended their rage on the roast goose; they ate enough to
last them three days; they would have stowed away the dish, the table,
the very shop, if they could have ruined Clump-Clump by doing so. All
the ladies had wanted a piece of the breast, traditionally the ladies'
portion. Madame Lerat, Madame Boche, Madame Putois, were all picking
bones; whilst mother Coupeau, who adored the neck, was tearing off the
flesh with her two last teeth. Virginie liked the skin when it was
nicely browned, and the other guests gallantly passed their skin to
her; so much so, that Poisson looked at his wife severely, and bade
her stop, because she had had enough as it was. Once already, she had
been a fortnight in bed, with her stomach swollen out, through having
eaten too much roast goose. But Coupeau got angry and helped Virginie
to the upper part of a leg, saying that, by Jove's thunder! if she did
not pick it, she wasn't a proper woman. Had roast goose ever done harm
to anybody? On the contrary, it cured all complaints of the spleen.
One could eat it without bread, like dessert. He could go on
swallowing it all night without being the least bit inconvenienced;
and, just to show off, he stuffed a whole drum-stick into his mouth.
Meanwhile, Clemence had got to the end of the rump, and was sucking it
with her lips, whilst she wriggled with laughter on her chair because
Boche was whispering all sorts of smutty things to her. Ah, by Jove!
Yes, there was a dinner! When one's at it, one's at it, you know; and
if one only has the chance now and then, one would be precious stupid
not to stuff oneself up to one's ears. Really, one could see their
sides puff out by degrees. They were cracking in their skins, the
blessed gormandizers! With their mouths open, their chins besmeared
with grease, they had such bloated red faces that one would have said
they were bursting with prosperity.

As for the wine, well, that was flowing as freely around the table as
water flows in the Seine. It was like a brook overflowing after a
rainstorm when the soil is parched. Coupeau raised the bottle high
when pouring to see the red jet foam in the glass. Whenever he emptied
a bottle, he would turn it upside down and shake it. One more dead
solder! In a corner of the laundry the pile of dead soldiers grew
larger and larger, a veritable cemetery of bottles onto which other
debris from the table was tossed.

Coupeau became indignant when Madame Putois asked for water. He took
all the water pitchers from the table. Do respectable citizens ever
drink water? Did she want to grow frogs in her stomach?

Many glasses were emptied at one gulp. You could hear the liquid
gurgling its way down the throats like rainwater in a drainpipe after
a storm. One might say it was raining wine. /Mon Dieu!/ the juice of
the grape was a remarkable invention. Surely the workingman couldn't
get along without his wine. Papa Noah must have planted his grapevine
for the benefit of zinc-workers, tailors and blacksmiths. It
brightened you up and refreshed you after a hard day's work.

Coupeau was in a high mood. He proclaimed that all the ladies present
were very cute, and jingled the three sous in his pocket as if they
had been five-franc pieces.

Even Goujet, who was ordinarily very sober, had taken plenty of wine.
Boche's eyes were narrowing, those of Lorilleux were paling, and
Poisson was developing expressions of stern severity on his soldierly
face. All the men were as drunk as lords and the ladies had reached a
certain point also, feeling so warm that they had to loosen their
clothes. Only Clemence carried this a bit too far.

Suddenly Gervaise recollected the six sealed bottles of wine. She had
forgotten to put them on the table with the goose; she fetched them,
and all the glasses were filled. Then Poisson rose, and holding his
glass in the air, said:

"I drink to the health of the missus."

All of them stood up, making a great noise with their chairs as they
moved. Holding out their arms, they clinked glasses in the midst of an
immense uproar.

"Here's to this day fifty years hence!" cried Virginie.

"No, no," replied Gervaise, deeply moved and smiling; "I shall be too
old. Ah! a day comes when one's glad to go."

Through the door, which was wide open, the neighborhood was looking on
and taking part in the festivities. Passers-by stopped in the broad
ray of light which shone over the pavement, and laughed heartily at
seeing all these people stuffing away so jovially.

The aroma from the roasted goose brought joy to the whole street. The
clerks on the sidewalk opposite thought they could almost taste the
bird. Others came out frequently to stand in front of their shops,
sniffing the air and licking their lips. The little jeweler was unable
to work, dizzy from having counted so many bottles. He seemed to have
lost his head among his merry little cuckoo clocks.

Yes, the neighbors were devoured with envy, as Coupeau said. But why
should there be any secret made about the matter? The party, now
fairly launched, was no longer ashamed of being seen at table; on the
contrary, it felt flattered and excited at seeing the crowd gathered
there, gaping with gluttony; it would have liked to have knocked out
the shop-front and dragged the table into the road-way, and there to
have enjoyed the dessert under the very nose of the public, and amidst
the commotion of the thoroughfare. Nothing disgusting was to be seen
in them, was there? Then there was no need to shut themselves in like
selfish people. Coupeau, noticing the little clockmaker looked very
thirsty, held up a bottle; and as the other nodded his head, he
carried him the bottle and a glass. A fraternity was established in
the street. They drank to anyone who passed. They called in any chaps
who looked the right sort. The feast spread, extending from one to
another, to the degree that the entire neighborhood of the Goutte-d'Or
sniffed the grub, and held its stomach, amidst a rumpus worthy of the
devil and all his demons. For some minutes, Madame Vigouroux, the
charcoal-dealer, had been passing to and fro before the door.

"Hi! Madame Vigouroux! Madame Vigouroux!" yelled the party.

She entered with a broad grin on her face, which was washed for once,
and so fat that the body of her dress was bursting. The men liked
pinching her, because they might pinch her all over without ever
encountering a bone. Boche made room for her beside him and reached
slyly under the table to grab her knee. But she, being accustomed to
that sort of thing, quietly tossed off a glass of wine, and related
that all the neighbors were at their windows, and that some of the
people of the house were beginning to get angry.

"Oh, that's our business," said Madame Boche. "We're the concierges,
aren't we? Well, we're answerable for good order. Let them come and
complain to us, we'll receive them in a way they don't expect."

In the back-room there had just been a furious fight between Nana and
Augustine, on account of the Dutch oven, which both wanted to scrape
out. For a quarter of an hour, the Dutch oven had rebounded over the
tile floor with the noise of an old saucepan. Nana was now nursing
little Victor, who had a goose-bone in his throat. She pushed her
fingers under his chin, and made him swallow big lumps of sugar by way
of a remedy. That did not prevent her keeping an eye on the big table.
At every minute she came and asked for wine, bread, or meat, for
Etienne and Pauline, she said.

"Here! Burst!" her mother would say to her. "Perhaps you'll leave us
in peace now!"

The children were scarcely able to swallow any longer, but they
continued to eat all the same, banging their forks down on the table
to the tune of a canticle, in order to excite themselves.

In the midst of the noise, however, a conversation was going on
between Pere Bru and mother Coupeau. The old fellow, who was ghastly
pale in spite of the wine and the food, was talking of his sons who
had died in the Crimea. Ah! if the lads had only lived, he would have
had bread to eat every day. But mother Coupeau, speaking thickly,
leant towards him and said:

"Ah! one has many worries with children! For instance, I appear to be
happy here, don't I? Well! I cry more often than you think. No, don't
wish you still had your children."

Pere Bru shook his head.

"I can't get work anywhere," murmured he. "I'm too old. When I enter a
workshop the young fellows joke, and ask me if I polished Henri IV.'s
boots. To-day it's all over; they won't have me anywhere. Last year I
could still earn thirty sous a day painting a bridge. I had to lie on
my back with the river flowing under me. I've had a bad cough ever
since then. Now, I'm finished."

He looked at his poor stiff hands and added:

"It's easy to understand, I'm no longer good for anything. They're
right; were I in their place I should do the same. You see, the
misfortune is that I'm not dead. Yes, it's my fault. One should lie
down and croak when one's no longer able to work."

"Really," said Lorilleux, who was listening, "I don't understand why
the Government doesn't come to the aid of the invalids of labor. I was
reading that in a newspaper the other day."

But Poisson thought it his duty to defend the Government.

"Workmen are not soldiers," declared he. "The Invalides is for
soldiers. You must not ask for what is impossible."

Dessert was now served. In the centre of the table was a Savoy cake in
the form of a temple, with a dome fluted with melon slices; and this
dome was surmounted by an artificial rose, close to which was a silver
paper butterfly, fluttering at the end of a wire. Two drops of gum in
the centre of the flower imitated dew. Then, to the left, a piece of
cream cheese floated in a deep dish; whilst in another dish to the
right, were piled up some large crushed strawberries, with the juice
running from them. However, there was still some salad left, some
large coss lettuce leaves soaked with oil.

"Come, Madame Boche," said Gervaise, coaxingly, "a little more salad.
I know how fond you are of it."

"No, no, thank you! I've already had as much as I can manage," replied
the concierge.

The laundress turning towards Virginie, the latter put her finger in
her mouth, as though to touch the food she had taken.

"Really, I'm full," murmured she. "There's no room left. I couldn't
swallow a mouthful."

"Oh! but if you tried a little," resumed Gervaise with a smile. "One
can always find a tiny corner empty. Once doesn't need to be hungry to
be able to eat salad. You're surely not going to let this be wasted?"

"You can eat it to-morrow," said Madame Lerat; "it's nicer when its
wilted."

The ladies sighed as they looked regretfully at the salad-bowl.
Clemence related that she had one day eaten three bunches of
watercresses at her lunch. Madame Putois could do more than that, she
would take a coss lettuce and munch it up with some salt just as it
was without separating the leaves. They could all have lived on salad,
would have treated themselves to tubfuls. And, this conversation
aiding, the ladies cleaned out the salad-bowl.

"I could go on all fours in a meadow," observed the concierge with her
mouth full.

Then they chuckled together as they eyed the dessert. Dessert did not
count. It came rather late but that did not matter; they would nurse
it all the same. When you're that stuffed, you can't let yourself be
stopped by strawberries and cake. There was no hurry. They had the
entire night if they wished. So they piled their plates with
strawberries and cream cheese. Meanwhile the men lit their pipes. They
were drinking the ordinary wine while they smoked since the special
wine had been finished. Now they insisted that Gervaise cut the Savoy
cake. Poisson got up and took the rose from the cake and presented it
in his most gallant manner to the hostess amidst applause from the
other guests. She pinned it over her left breast, near the heart. The
silver butterfly fluttered with her every movement.

"Well, look," exclaimed Lorilleux, who had just made a discovery,
"it's your work-table that we're eating off! Ah, well! I daresay it's
never seen so much work before!"

This malicious joke had a great success. Witty allusions came from all
sides. Clemence could not swallow a spoonful of strawberries without
saying that it was another shirt ironed; Madame Lerat pretended that
the cream cheese smelt of starch; whilst Madame Lorilleux said between
her teeth that it was capital fun to gobble up the money so quickly on
the very boards on which one had had so much trouble to earn it. There
was quite a tempest of shouts and laughter.

But suddenly a loud voice called for silence. It was Boche who,
standing up in an affected and vulgar way, was commencing to sing "The
Volcano of Love, or the Seductive Trooper."

A thunder of applause greeted the first verse. Yes, yes, they would
sing songs! Everyone in turn. It was more amusing than anything else.
And they all put their elbows on the table or leant back in their
chairs, nodding their heads at the best parts and sipping their wine
when they came to the choruses. That rogue Boche had a special gift
for comic songs. He would almost make the water pitchers laugh when he
imitated the raw recruit with his fingers apart and his hat on the
back of his head. Directly after "The Volcano of Love," he burst out
into "The Baroness de Follebiche," one of his greatest successes. When
he reached the third verse he turned towards Clemence and almost
murmured it in a slow and voluptuous tone of voice:

  "The baroness had people there,
     Her sisters four, oh! rare surprise;
   And three were dark, and one was fair;
     Between them, eight bewitching eyes."

Then the whole party, carried away, joined in the chorus. The men beat
time with their heels, whilst the ladies did the same with their
knives against their glasses. All of them singing at the top of their
voices:

  "By Jingo! who on earth will pay
     A drink to the pa--to the pa--pa--?
   By Jingo! who on earth will pay
     A drink to the pa--to the pa--tro--o--l?"

The panes of glass of the shop-front resounded, the singers' great
volume of breath agitated the muslin curtains. Whilst all this was
going on, Virginie had already twice disappeared and each time, on
returning, had leant towards Gervaise's ear to whisper a piece of
information. When she returned the third time, in the midst of the
uproar, she said to her:

"My dear, he's still at Francois's; he's pretending to read the
newspaper. He's certainly meditating some evil design."

She was speaking of Lantier. It was him that she had been watching. At
each fresh report Gervaise became more and more grave.

"Is he drunk?" asked she of Virginie.

"No," replied the tall brunette. "He looks as though he had merely had
what he required. It's that especially which makes me anxious. Why
does he remain there if he's had all he wanted? /Mon Dieu!/ I hope
nothing is going to happen!"

The laundress, greatly upset, begged her to leave off. A profound
silence suddenly succeeded the clamor. Madame Putois had just risen
and was about to sing "The Boarding of the Pirate." The guests, silent
and thoughtful, watched her; even Poisson had laid his pipe down on
the edge of the table the better to listen to her. She stood up to the
full height of her little figure, with a fierce expression about her,
though her face looked quite pale beneath her black cap; she thrust
out her left fist with a satisfied pride as she thundered in a voice
bigger than herself:

  "If the pirate audacious
   Should o'er the waves chase us,
   The buccaneer slaughter,
   Accord him no quarter.
   To the guns every man,
   And with rum fill each can!
   While these pests of the seas
   Dangle from the cross-trees."

That was something serious. By Jove! it gave one a fine idea of the
real thing. Poisson, who had been on board ship nodded his head in
approval of the description. One could see too that that song was in
accordance with Madame Putois's own feeling. Coupeau then told how
Madame Putois, one evening on Rue Poulet, had slapped the face of four
men who sought to attack her virtue.

With the assistance of mother Coupeau, Gervaise was now serving the
coffee, though some of the guests had not yet finished their Savoy
cake. They would not let her sit down again, but shouted that it was
her turn. With a pale face, and looking very ill at ease, she tried to
excuse herself; she seemed so queer that someone inquired whether the
goose had disagreed with her. She finally gave them "Oh! let me
slumber!" in a sweet and feeble voice. When she reached the chorus
with its wish for a sleep filled with beautiful dreams, her eyelids
partly closed and her rapt gaze lost itself in the darkness of the
street.

Poisson stood next and with an abrupt bow to the ladies, sang a
drinking song: "The Wines of France." But his voice wasn't very
musical and only the final verse, a patriotic one mentioning the
tricolor flag, was a success. Then he raised his glass high, juggled
it a moment, and poured the contents into his open mouth.

Then came a string of ballads; Madame Boche's barcarolle was all about
Venice and the gondoliers; Madame Lorilleux sang of Seville and the
Andalusians in her bolero; whilst Lorilleux went so far as to allude
to the perfumes of Arabia, in reference to the loves of Fatima the
dancer.

Golden horizons were opening up all around the heavily laden table.
The men were smoking their pipes and the women unconsciously smiling
with pleasure. All were dreaming they were far away.

Clemence began to sing softly "Let's Make a Nest" with a tremolo in
her voice which pleased them greatly for it made them think of the
open country, of songbirds, of dancing beneath an arbor, and of
flowers. In short, it made them think of the Bois de Vincennes when
they went there for a picnic.

But Virginie revived the joking with "My Little Drop of Brandy." She
imitated a camp follower, with one hand on her hip, the elbow arched
to indicate the little barrel; and with the other hand she poured out
the brandy into space by turning her fist round. She did it so well
that the party then begged mother Coupeau to sing "The Mouse." The old
woman refused, vowing that she did not know that naughty song. Yet she
started off with the remnants of her broken voice; and her wrinkled
face with its lively little eyes underlined the allusions, the terrors
of Mademoiselle Lise drawing her skirts around her at the sight of a
mouse. All the table laughed; the women could not keep their
countenances, and continued casting bright glances at their neighbors;
it was not indecent after all, there were no coarse words in it. All
during the song Boche was playing mouse up and down the legs of the
lady coal-dealer. Things might have gotten a bit out of line if
Goujet, in response to a glance from Gervaise, had not brought back
the respectful silence with "The Farewell of Abdul-Kader," which he
sang out loudly in his bass voice. The song rang out from his golden
beard as if from a brass trumpet. All the hearts skipped a beat when
he cried, "Ah, my noble comrade!" referring to the warrior's black
mare. They burst into applause even before the end.

"Now, Pere Bru, it's your turn!" said mother Coupeau. "Sing your song.
The old ones are the best any day!"

And everybody turned towards the old man, pressing him and encouraging
him. He, in a state of torpor, with his immovable mask of tanned skin,
looked at them without appearing to understand. They asked him if he
knew the "Five Vowels." He held down his head; he could not recollect
it; all the songs of the good old days were mixed up in his head. As
they made up their minds to leave him alone, he seemed to remember,
and began to stutter in a cavernous voice:

  "Trou la la, trou la la,
   Trou la, trou la, trou la la!"

His face assumed an animated expression, this chorus seemed to awake
some far-off gaieties within him, enjoyed by himself alone, as he
listened with a childish delight to his voice which became more and
more hollow.

"Say there, my dear," Virginie came and whispered in Gervaise's ear,
"I've just been there again, you know. It worried me. Well! Lantier
has disappeared from Francois's."

"You didn't meet him outside?" asked the laundress.

"No, I walked quickly, not as if I was looking for him."

But Virginie raised her eyes, interrupted herself and heaved a
smothered sigh.

"Ah! /Mon Dieu!/ He's there, on the pavement opposite; he's looking
this way."

Gervaise, quite beside herself, ventured to glance in the direction
indicated. Some persons had collected in the street to hear the party
sing. And Lantier was indeed there in the front row, listening and
coolly looking on. It was rare cheek, everything considered. Gervaise
felt a chill ascend from her legs to her heart, and she no longer
dared to move, whilst old Bru continued:

  "Trou la la, trou la la,
   Trou la, trou la, trou la la!"

"Very good. Thank you, my ancient one, that's enough!" said Coupeau.
"Do you know the whole of it? You shall sing it for us another day
when we need something sad."

This raised a few laughs. The old fellow stopped short, glanced round
the table with his pale eyes and resumed his look of a meditative
animal. Coupeau called for more wine as the coffee was finished.
Clemence was eating strawberries again. With the pause in singing,
they began to talk about a woman who had been found hanging that
morning in the building next door. It was Madame Lerat's turn, but she
required to prepare herself. She dipped the corner of her napkin into
a glass of water and applied it to her temples because she was too
hot. Then, she asked for a thimbleful of brandy, drank it, and slowly
wiped her lips.

"The 'Child of God,' shall it be?" she murmured, "the 'Child of God.'"

And, tall and masculine-looking, with her bony nose and her shoulders
as square as a grenadier's she began:

  "The lost child left by its mother alone
   Is sure of a home in Heaven above,
   God sees and protects it on earth from His throne,
   The child that is lost is the child of God's love."

Her voice trembled at certain words, and dwelt on them in liquid
notes; she looked out of the corner of her eyes to heaven, whilst her
right hand swung before her chest or pressed against her heart with an
impressive gesture. Then Gervaise, tortured by Lantier's presence,
could not restrain her tears; it seemed to her that the song was
relating her own suffering, that she was the lost child, abandoned by
its mother, and whom God was going to take under his protection.
Clemence was now very drunk and she burst into loud sobbing and placed
her head down onto the table in an effort to smother her gasps. There
was a hush vibrant with emotion.

The ladies had pulled out their handkerchiefs, and were drying their
eyes, with their heads erect from pride. The men had bowed their heads
and were staring straight before them, blinking back their tears.
Poisson bit off the end of his pipe twice while gulping and gasping.
Boche, with two large tears trickling down his face, wasn't even
bothering to squeeze the coal-dealer's knee any longer. All these
drunk revelers were as soft-hearted as lambs. Wasn't the wine almost
coming out of their eyes? When the refrain began again, they all let
themselves go, blubbering into their plates.

But Gervaise and Virginie could not, in spite of themselves, take
their eyes off the pavement opposite. Madame Boche, in her turn,
caught sight of Lantier and uttered a faint cry without ceasing to
besmear her face with her tears. Then all three had very anxious faces
as they exchanged involuntary signs. /Mon Dieu!/ if Coupeau were to
turn round, if Coupeau caught sight of the other! What a butchery!
What carnage! And they went on to such an extent that the zinc-worker
asked them:

"Whatever are you looking at?"

He leant forward and recognized Lantier.

"Damnation! It's too much," muttered he. "Ah! the dirty scoundrel--ah!
the dirty scoundrel. No, it's too much, it must come to an end."

And as he rose from his seat muttering most atrocious threats,
Gervaise, in a low voice, implored him to keep quiet.

"Listen to me, I implore you. Leave the knife alone. Remain where you
are, don't do anything dreadful."

Virginie had to take the knife which he had picked up off the table
from him. But she could not prevent him leaving the shop and going up
to Lantier.

Those around the table saw nothing of this, so involved were they in
weeping over the song as Madame Lerat sang the last verse. It sounded
like a moaning wail of the wind and Madame Putois was so moved that
she spilled her wine over the table. Gervaise remained frozen with
fright, one hand tight against her lips to stifle her sobs. She
expected at any moment to see one of the two men fall unconscious in
the street.

As Coupeau rushed toward Lantier, he was so astonished by the fresh
air that he staggered, and Lantier, with his hands in his pockets,
merely took a step to the side. Now the two men were almost shouting
at each other, Coupeau calling the other a lousy pig and threatening
to make sausage of his guts. They were shouting loudly and angrily and
waving their arms violently. Gervaise felt faint and as it continued
for a while, she closed her eyes. Suddenly, she didn't hear any
shouting and opened her eyes. The two men were chatting amiably
together.

Madame Lerat's voice rose higher and higher, warbling another verse.

Gervaise exchanged a glance with Madame Boche and Virginie. Was it
going to end amicably then? Coupeau and Lantier continued to converse
on the edge of the pavement. They were still abusing each other, but
in a friendly way. As people were staring at them, they ended by
strolling leisurely side by side past the houses, turning round again
every ten yards or so. A very animated conversation was now taking
place. Suddenly Coupeau appeared to become angry again, whilst the
other was refusing something and required to be pressed. And it was
the zinc-worker who pushed Lantier along and who forced him to cross
the street and enter the shop.

"I tell you, you're quite welcome!" shouted he. "You'll take a glass
of wine. Men are men, you know. We ought to understand each other."

Madame Lerat was finishing the last chorus. The ladies were singing
all together as they twisted their handkerchiefs.

  "The child that is lost is the child of God's love."

The singer was greatly complimented and she resumed her seat affecting
to be quite broken down. She asked for something to drink because she
always put too much feeling into that song and she was constantly
afraid of straining her vocal chords. Everyone at the table now had
their eyes fixed on Lantier who, quietly seated beside Coupeau, was
devouring the last piece of Savoy cake which he dipped in his glass of
wine. With the exception of Virginie and Madame Boche none of the
guests knew him. The Lorilleuxs certainly scented some underhand
business, but not knowing what, they merely assumed their most
conceited air. Goujet, who had noticed Gervaise's emotion, gave the
newcomer a sour look. As an awkward pause ensued Coupeau simply said:

"A friend of mine."

And turning to his wife, added:

"Come, stir yourself! Perhaps there's still some hot coffee left."

Gervaise, feeling meek and stupid, looked at them one after the other.
At first, when her husband pushed her old lover into the shop, she
buried her head between her hands, the same as she instinctively did
on stormy days at each clap of thunder. She could not believe it
possible; the walls would fall in and crush them all. Then, when she
saw the two sitting together peacefully, she suddenly accepted it as
quite natural. A happy feeling of languor benumbed her, retained her
all in a heap at the edge of the table, with the sole desire of not
being bothered. /Mon Dieu!/ what is the use of putting oneself out
when others do not, and when things arrange themselves to the
satisfaction of everybody? She got up to see if there was any coffee
left.

In the back-room the children had fallen asleep. That squint-eyed
Augustine had tyrannized over them all during the dessert, pilfering
their strawberries and frightening them with the most abominable
threats. Now she felt very ill, and was bent double upon a stool, not
uttering a word, her face ghastly pale. Fat Pauline had let her head
fall against Etienne's shoulder, and he himself was sleeping on the
edge of the table. Nana was seated with Victor on the rug beside the
bedstead, she had passed her arm round his neck and was drawing him
towards her; and, succumbing to drowsiness and with her eyes shut, she
kept repeating in a feeble voice:

"Oh! Mamma, I'm not well; oh! mamma, I'm not well."

"No wonder!" murmured Augustine, whose head was rolling about on her
shoulders, "they're drunk; they've been singing like grown up
persons."

Gervaise received another blow on beholding Etienne. She felt as
though she would choke when she thought of the youngster's father
being there in the other room, eating cake, and that he had not even
expressed a desire to kiss the little fellow. She was on the point of
rousing Etienne and of carrying him there in her arms. Then she again
felt that the quiet way in which matters had been arranged was the
best. It would not have been proper to have disturbed the harmony of
the end of the dinner. She returned with the coffee-pot and poured out
a glass of coffee for Lantier, who, by the way, did not appear to take
any notice of her.

"Now, it's my turn," stuttered Coupeau, in a thick voice. "You've been
keeping the best for the last. Well! I'll sing you 'That Piggish
Child.'"

"Yes, yes, 'That Piggish Child,'" cried everyone.

The uproar was beginning again. Lantier was forgotten. The ladies
prepared their glasses and their knives for accompanying the chorus.
They laughed beforehand, as they looked at the zinc-worker, who
steadied himself on his legs as he put on his most vulgar air.
Mimicking the hoarse voice of an old woman, he sang:

  "When out of bed each morn I hop,
   I'm always precious queer;
   I send him for a little drop
   To the drinking-ken that's near.
   A good half hour or more he'll stay,
   And that makes me so riled,
   He swigs it half upon his way:
   What a piggish child!"

And the ladies, striking their glasses, repeated in chorus in the
midst of a formidable gaiety:

  "What a piggish child!
   What a piggish child!"

Even the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or itself joined in now. The whole
neighborhood was singing "What a piggish child!" The little
clockmaker, the grocery clerks, the tripe woman and the fruit woman
all knew the song and joined in the chorus. The entire street seemed
to be getting drunk on the odors from the Coupeau party. In the
reddish haze from the two lamps, the noise of the party was enough to
shut out the rumbling of the last vehicles in the street. Two
policemen rushed over, thinking there was a riot, but on recognizing
Poisson, they saluted him smartly and went away between the darkened
buildings.

Coupeau was now singing this verse:

  "On Sundays at Petite Villette,
   Whene'er the weather's fine,
   We call on uncle, old Tinette,
   Who's in the dustman line.
   To feast upon some cherry stones
   The young un's almost wild,
   And rolls amongst the dust and bones,
   What a piggish child!
   What a piggish child!"

Then the house almost collapsed, such a yell ascended in the calm warm
night air that the shouters applauded themselves, for it was useless
their hoping to be able to bawl any louder.

Not one of the party could ever recollect exactly how the carouse
terminated. It must have been very late, it's quite certain, for not a
cat was to be seen in the street. Possibly too, they had all joined
hands and danced round the table. But all was submerged in a yellow
mist, in which red faces were jumping about, with mouths slit from ear
to ear. They had probably treated themselves to something stronger
than wine towards the end, and there was a vague suspicion that some
one had played them the trick of putting salt into the glasses. The
children must have undressed and put themselves to bed. On the morrow,
Madame Boche boasted of having treated Boche to a couple of clouts in
a corner, where he was conversing a great deal too close to the
charcoal-dealer; but Boche, who recollected nothing, said she must
have dreamt it. Everyone agreed that it wasn't very decent the way
Clemence had carried on. She had ended by showing everything she had
and then been so sick that she had completely ruined one of the muslin
curtains. The men had at least the decency to go into the street;
Lorilleux and Poisson, feeling their stomachs upset, had stumblingly
glided as far as the pork-butcher's shop. It is easy to see when a
person has been well brought up. For instance, the ladies, Madame
Putois, Madame Lerat, and Virginie, indisposed by the heat, had simply
gone into the back-room and taken their stays off; Virginie had even
desired to lie on the bed for a minute, just to obviate any unpleasant
effects. Thus the party had seemed to melt away, some disappearing
behind the others, all accompanying one another, and being lost sight
of in the surrounding darkness, to the accompaniment of a final
uproar, a furious quarrel between the Lorilleuxs, and an obstinate and
mournful "trou la la, trou la la," of old Bru's. Gervaise had an idea
that Goujet had burst out sobbing when bidding her good-bye; Coupeau
was still singing; and as for Lantier, he must have remained till the
end. At one moment even, she could still feel a breath against her
hair, but she was unable to say whether it came from Lantier or if it
was the warm night air.

Since Madame Lerat didn't want to return to Les Batignolles at such a
late hour, they took one of the mattresses off the bed and spread it
for her in a corner of the shop, after pushing back the table. She
slept right there amid all the dinner crumbs. All night long, while
the Coupeaus were sleeping, a neighbor's cat took advantage of an open
window and was crunching the bones of the goose with its sharp teeth,
giving the bird its final resting place.



                             CHAPTER VIII

On the following Saturday Coupeau, who had not come home to dinner,
brought Lantier with him towards ten o'clock. They had had some
sheep's trotters at Chez Thomas at Montmartre.

"You mustn't scold, wife," said the zinc-worker. "We're sober, as you
can see. Oh! there's no fear with him; he keeps one on the straight
road."

And he related how they happened to meet in the Rue Rochechouart.
After dinner Lantier had declined to have a drink at the "Black Ball,"
saying that when one was married to a pretty and worthy little woman,
one ought not to go liquoring-up at all the wineshops. Gervaise
smiled slightly as she listened. Oh! she was not thinking of scolding,
she felt too much embarrassed for that. She had been expecting to see
her former lover again some day ever since their dinner party; but at
such an hour, when she was about to go to bed, the unexpected arrival
of the two men had startled her. Her hands were quivering as she
pinned back the hair which had slid down her neck.

"You know," resumed Coupeau, "as he was so polite as to decline a
drink outside, you must treat us to one here. Ah! you certainly owe us
that!"

The workwomen had left long ago. Mother Coupeau and Nana had just gone
to bed. Gervaise, who had been just about to put up the shutters when
they appeared, left the shop open and brought some glasses which she
placed on a corner of the work-table with what was left of a bottle of
brandy.

Lantier remained standing and avoided speaking directly to her.
However, when she served him, he exclaimed:

"Only a thimbleful, madame, if you please."

Coupeau looked at them and then spoke his mind very plainly. They were
not going to behave like a couple of geese he hoped! The past was past
was it not? If people nursed grudges for nine and ten years together
one would end by no longer seeing anybody. No, no, he carried his
heart in his hand, he did! First of all, he knew who he had to deal
with, a worthy woman and a worthy man--in short two friends! He felt
easy; he knew he could depend upon them.

"Oh! that's certain, quite certain," repeated Gervaise, looking on the
ground and scarcely understanding what she said.

"She is a sister now--nothing but a sister!" murmured Lantier in his
turn.

"/Mon Dieu!/ shake hands," cried Coupeau, "and let those who don't
like it go to blazes! When one has proper feelings one is better off
than millionaires. For myself I prefer friendship before everything
because friendship is friendship and there's nothing to beat it."

He dealt himself heavy blows on the chest, and seemed so moved that
they had to calm him. They all three silently clinked glasses, and
drank their drop of brandy. Gervaise was then able to look at Lantier
at her ease; for on the night of her saint's day, she had only seen
him through a fog. He had grown more stout, his arms and legs seeming
too heavy because of his small stature. His face was still handsome
even though it was a little puffy now due to his life of idleness. He
still took great pains with his narrow moustache. He looked about his
actual age. He was wearing grey trousers, a heavy blue overcoat, and a
round hat. He even had a watch with a silver chain on which a ring was
hanging as a keepsake. He looked quite like a gentleman.

"I'm off," said he. "I live no end of a distance from here."

He was already on the pavement when the zinc-worker called him back to
make him promise never to pass the door without looking in to wish
them good day. Meanwhile Gervaise, who had quietly disappeared,
returned pushing Etienne before her. The child, who was in his shirt-
sleeves and half asleep, smiled as he rubbed his eyes. But when he
beheld Lantier he stood trembling and embarrassed, and casting anxious
glances in the direction of his mother and Coupeau.

"Don't you remember this gentleman?" asked the latter.

The child held down his head without replying. Then he made a slight
sign which meant that he did remember the gentleman.

"Well! Then, don't stand there like a fool; go and kiss him."

Lantier gravely and quietly waited. When Etienne had made up his mind
to approach him, he stooped down, presented both his cheeks, and then
kissed the youngster on the forehead himself. At this the boy ventured
to look at his father; but all on a sudden he burst out sobbing and
scampered away like a mad creature with his clothes half falling off
him, whilst Coupeau angrily called him a young savage.

"The emotion's too much for him," said Gervaise, pale and agitated
herself.

"Oh! he's generally very gentle and nice," exclaimed Coupeau. "I've
brought him up properly, as you'll see. He'll get used to you. He must
learn to know people. We can't stay mad. We should have made up a long
time ago for his sake. I'd rather have my head cut off than keep a
father from seeing his own son."

Having thus delivered himself, he talked of finishing the bottle of
brandy. All three clinked glasses again. Lantier showed no surprise,
but remained perfectly calm. By way of repaying the zinc-worker's
politeness he persisted in helping him put up the shutters before
taking his departure. Then rubbing his hands together to get rid of
the dust on them, he wished the couple good-night.

"Sleep well. I shall try and catch the last bus. I promise you I'll
look in again soon."

After that evening Lantier frequently called at the Rue de la Goutte-
d'Or. He came when the zinc-worker was there, inquiring after his
health the moment he passed the door and affecting to have solely
called on his account. Then clean-shaven, his hair nicely combed and
always wearing his overcoat, he would take a seat by the window and
converse politely with the manners of an educated man. It was thus
that the Coupeaus learnt little by little the details of his life.
During the last eight years he had for a while managed a hat factory;
and when they asked him why he had retired from it he merely alluded
to the rascality of a partner, a fellow from his native place, a
scoundrel who had squandered all the takings with women. His former
position as an employer continued to affect his entire personality,
like a title of nobility that he could not abandon. He was always
talking of concluding a magnificent deal with some hatmakers who were
going to set him up in business. While waiting for this he did nothing
but stroll around all day like one of the idle rich. If anyone dared
to mention a hat factory looking for workers, he smiled and said he
was not interested in breaking his back working for others.

A smart fellow like Lantier, according to Coupeau, knew how to take
care of himself. He always looked prosperous and it took money to look
thus. He must have some deal going. One morning Coupeau had seen him
having his shoes shined on the Boulevard Montmartre. Lantier was very
talkative about others, but the truth was that he told lies about
himself. He would not even say where he lived, only that he was
staying with a friend and there was no use in coming to see him
because he was never in.

It was now early November. Lantier would gallantly bring bunches of
violets for Gervaise and the workwomen. He was now coming almost every
day. He won the favor of Clemence and Madame Putois with his little
attentions. At the end of the month they adored him. The Boches, whom
he flattered by going to pay his respects in their concierge's lodge,
went into ecstasies over his politeness.

As soon as the Lorilleuxs knew who he was, they howled at the
impudence of Gervaise in bringing her former lover into her home.
However, one day Lantier went to visit them and made such a good
impression when he ordered a necklace for a lady of his acquaintance
that they invited him to sit down. He stayed an hour and they were so
charmed by his conversation that they wondered how a man of such
distinction had ever lived with Clump-Clump. Soon Lantier's visits to
the Coupeaus were accepted as perfectly natural; he was in the good
graces of everyone along the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. Goujet was the
only one who remained cold. If he happened to be there when Lantier
arrived, he would leave at once as he didn't want to be obliged to be
friendly to him.

In the midst, however, of all this extraordinary affection for
Lantier, Gervaise lived in a state of great agitation for the first
few weeks. She felt that burning sensation in the pit of her stomach
which affected her on the day when Virginie first alluded to her past
life. Her great fear was that she might find herself without strength,
if he came upon her all alone one night and took it into his head to
kiss her. She thought of him too much; she was for ever thinking of
him. But she gradually became calmer on seeing him behave so well,
never looking her in the face, never even touching her with the tips
of his fingers when no one was watching. Then Virginie, who seemed to
read within her, made her ashamed of all her wicked thoughts. Why did
she tremble? Once could not hope to come across a nicer man. She
certainly had nothing to fear now. And one day the tall brunette
maneuvered in such a way as to get them both into a corner, and to
turn the conversation to the subject of love. Lantier, choosing his
words, declared in a grave voice that his heart was dead, that for the
future he wished to consecrate his life solely for his son's
happiness. Every evening he would kiss Etienne on the forehead, yet he
was apt to forget him in teasing back and forth with Clemence. And he
never mentioned Claude who was still in the south. Gervaise began to
feel at ease. Lantier's actual presence overshadowed her memories, and
seeing him all the time, she no longer dreamed about him. She even
felt a certain repugnance at the thought of their former relationship.
Yes, it was over. If he dared to approach her, she'd box his ears, or
even better, she'd tell her husband. Once again her thoughts turned to
Goujet and his affection for her.

One morning Clemence reported that the previous night, at about eleven
o'clock, she had seen Monsieur Lantier with a woman. She told about it
maliciously and in coarse terms to see how Gervaise would react. Yes,
Monsieur Lantier was on the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette with a blonde
and she followed them. They had gone into a shop where the worn-out
and used-up woman had bought some shrimps. Then they went to the Rue
de La Rochefoucauld. Monsieur Lantier had waited on the pavement in
front of the house while his lady friend went in alone. Then she had
beckoned to him from the window to join her.

No matter how Clemence went on with the story Gervaise went on
peacefully ironing a white dress. Sometimes she smiled faintly. These
southerners, she said, are all crazy about women; they have to have
them no matter what, even if they come from a dung heap. When Lantier
came in that evening, Gervaise was amused when Clemence teased him
about the blonde. He seemed to feel flattered that he had been seen.
/Mon Dieu!/ she was just an old friend, he explained. He saw her from
time to time. She was quite stylish. He mentioned some of her former
lovers, among them a count, an important merchant and the son of a
lawyer. He added that a bit of playing around didn't mean a thing, his
heart was dead. In the end Clemence had to pay a price for her
meanness. She certainly felt Lantier pinching her hard two or three
times without seeming to do so. She was also jealous because she
didn't reek of musk like that boulevard work-horse.

When spring came, Lantier, who was now quite one of the family, talked
of living in the neighborhood, so as to be nearer his friends. He
wanted a furnished room in a decent house. Madame Boche, and even
Gervaise herself went searching about to find it for him. They
explored the neighboring streets. But he was always too difficult to
please; he required a big courtyard, a room on the ground floor; in
fact, every luxury imaginable. And then every evening, at the
Coupeaus', he seemed to measure the height of the ceilings, study the
arrangement of the rooms, and covet a similar lodging. Oh, he would
never have asked for anything better, he would willingly have made
himself a hole in that warm, quiet corner. Then each time he wound up
his inspection with these words:

"By Jove! you are comfortably situated here."

One evening, when he had dined there, and was making the same remark
during the dessert, Coupeau, who now treated him most familiarly,
suddenly exclaimed:

"You must stay here, old boy, if it suits you. It's easily arranged."

And he explained that the dirty-clothes room, cleaned out, would make
a nice apartment. Etienne could sleep in the shop, on a mattress on
the floor, that was all.

"No, no," said Lantier, "I cannot accept. It would inconvenience you
too much. I know that it's willingly offered, but we should be too
warm all jumbled up together. Besides, you know, each one likes his
liberty. I should have to go through your room, and that wouldn't be
exactly funny."

"Ah, the rogue!" resumed the zinc-worker, choking with laughter,
banging his fist down on the table, "he's always thinking of something
smutty! But, you joker, we're of an inventive turn of mind! There're
two windows in the room, aren't there? Well, we'll knock one out and
turn it into a door. Then, you understand you come in by way of the
courtyard, and we can even stop up the other door, if we like. Thus
you'll be in your home, and we in ours."

A pause ensued. At length the hatter murmured:

"Ah, yes, in that manner perhaps we might. And yet no, I should be too
much in your way."

He avoided looking at Gervaise. But he was evidently waiting for a
word from her before accepting. She was very much annoyed at her
husband's idea; not that the thought of seeing Lantier living with
them wounded her feelings, or made her particularly uneasy, but she
was wondering where she would be able to keep the dirty clothes.
Coupeau was going on about the advantages of the arrangement. Their
rent, five hundred francs, had always been a bit steep. Their friend
could pay twenty francs a month for a nicely furnished room and it
would help them with the rent. He would be responsible for fixing up a
big box under their bed that would be large enough to hold all the
dirty clothes. Gervaise still hesitated. She looked toward mother
Coupeau for guidance. Lantier had won over mother Coupeau months ago
by bringing her gum drops for her cough.

"You would certainly not be in our way," Gervaise ended by saying. "We
could so arrange things--"

"No, no, thanks," repeated the hatter. "You're too kind; it would be
asking too much."

Coupeau could no longer restrain himself. Was he going to continue
making objections when they told him it was freely offered? He would
be obliging them. There, did he understand? Then in an excited tone of
voice he yelled:

"Etienne! Etienne!"

The youngster had fallen asleep on the table. He raised his head with
a start.

"Listen, tell him that you wish it. Yes, that gentleman there. Tell
him as loud as you can: 'I wish it!'"

"I wish it!" stuttered Etienne, his voice thick with sleep.

Everyone laughed. But Lantier resumed his grave and impressive air. He
squeezed Coupeau's hand across the table as he said:

"I accept. It's in all good fellowship on both sides, is it not? Yes,
I accept for the child's sake."

The next day when the landlord, Monsieur Marescot, came to spend an
hour with the Boches, Gervaise mentioned the matter to him. He refused
angrily at first. Then, after a careful inspection of the premises,
particularly gazing upward to verify that the upper floors would not
be weakened, he finally granted permission on condition there would be
no expense to him. He had the Coupeaus sign a paper saying they would
restore everything to its original state on the expiration of the
lease.

Coupeau brought in some friends of his that very evening--a mason, a
carpenter and a painter. They would do this job in the evenings as a
favor to him. Still, installing the door and cleaning up the room cost
over one hundred francs, not counting the wine that kept the work
going. Coupeau told his friends he'd pay them something later, out of
the rent from his tenant.

Then the furniture for the room had to be sorted out. Gervaise left
mother Coupeau's wardrobe where it was, and added a table and two
chairs taken from her own room. She had to buy a washing-stand and a
bed with mattress and bedclothes, costing one hundred and thirty
francs, which she was to pay off at ten francs a month. Although
Lantier's twenty francs would be used to pay off these debts for ten
months, there would be a nice little profit later.

It was during the early days of June that the hatter moved in. The day
before, Coupeau had offered to go with him and fetch his box, to save
him the thirty sous for a cab. But the other became quite embarrassed,
saying that the box was too heavy, as though he wished up to the last
moment to hide the place where he lodged. He arrived in the afternoon
towards three o'clock. Coupeau did not happen to be in. And Gervaise,
standing at the shop door became quite pale on recognizing the box
outside the cab. It was their old box, the one with which they had
journeyed from Plassans, all scratched and broken now and held
together by cords. She saw it return as she had often dreamt it would
and it needed no great stretch of imagination to believe that the same
cab, that cab in which that strumpet of a burnisher had played her
such a foul trick, had brought the box back again. Meanwhile Boche was
giving Lantier a helping hand. The laundress followed them in silence
and feeling rather dazed. When they had deposited their burden in the
middle of the room she said for the sake of saying something:

"Well! That's a good thing finished, isn't it?"

Then pulling herself together, seeing that Lantier, busy in undoing
the cords was not even looking at her, she added:

"Monsieur Boche, you must have a drink."

And she went and fetched a quart of wine and some glasses.

Just then Poisson passed along the pavement in uniform. She signaled
to him, winking her eye and smiling. The policeman understood
perfectly. When he was on duty and anyone winked their eye to him it
meant a glass of wine. He would even walk for hours up and down before
the laundry waiting for a wink. Then so as not to be seen, he would
pass through the courtyard and toss off the liquor in secret.

"Ah! ah!" said Lantier when he saw him enter, "it's you, Badingue."

He called him Badingue for a joke, just to show how little he cared
for the Emperor. Poisson put up with it in his stiff way without one
knowing whether it really annoyed him or not. Besides the two men,
though separated by their political convictions, had become very good
friends.

"You know that the Emperor was once a policeman in London," said Boche
in his turn. "Yes, on my word! He used to take the drunken women to
the station-house."

Gervaise had filled three glasses on the table. She would not drink
herself, she felt too sick at heart, but she stood there longing to
see what the box contained and watching Lantier remove the last cords.
Before raising the lid Lantier took his glass and clinked it with the
others.

"Good health."

"Same to you," replied Boche and Poisson.

The laundress filled the glasses again. The three men wiped their lips
on the backs of their hands. And at last the hatter opened the box. It
was full of a jumble of newspapers, books, old clothes and underlinen,
in bundles. He took out successively a saucepan, a pair of boots, a
bust of Ledru-Rollin with the nose broken, an embroidered shirt and a
pair of working trousers. Gervaise could smell the odor of tobacco and
that of a man whose linen wasn't too clean, one who took care only of
the outside, of what people could see.

The old hat was no longer in the left corner. There was a pincushion
she did not recognize, doubtless a present from some woman. She became
calmer, but felt a vague sadness as she continued to watch the objects
that appeared, wondering if they were from her time or from the time
of others.

"I say, Badingue, do you know this?" resumed Lantier.

He thrust under his nose a little book printed at Brussels. "The
Amours of Napoleon III." Illustrated with engravings. It related,
among other anecdotes, how the Emperor had seduced a girl of thirteen,
the daughter of a cook; and the picture represented Napoleon III.,
bare-legged, and also wearing the grand ribbon of the Legion of Honor,
pursuing a little girl who was trying to escape his lust.

"Ah! that's it exactly!" exclaimed Boche, whose slyly ridiculous
instincts felt flattered by the sight. "It always happens like that!"

Poisson was seized with consternation, and he could not find a word to
say in the Emperor's defense. It was in a book, so he could not deny
it. Then, Lantier, continuing to push the picture under his nose in a
jeering way, he extended his arms and exclaimed:

"Well, so what?"

Lantier didn't reply, He busied himself arranging his books and
newspapers on a shelf in the wardrobe. He seemed upset not to have a
small bookshelf over his table, so Gervaise promised to get him one.
He had "The History of Ten Years" by Louis Blanc (except for the first
volume), Lamartine's "The Girondins" in installments, "The Mysteries
of Paris" and "The Wandering Jew" by Eugene Sue, and a quantity of
booklets on philosophic and humanitarian subjects picked up from used
book dealers.

His newspapers were his prized possessions, a collection made over a
number of years. Whenever he read an article in a cafe that seemed to
him to agree with his own ideas, he would buy that newspaper and keep
it. He had an enormous bundle of them, papers of every date and every
title, piled up in no discernable order. He patted them and said to
the other two:

"You see that? No one else can boast of having anything to match it.
You can't imagine all that's in there. I mean, if they put into
practice only half the ideas, it would clean up the social order
overnight. That would be good medicine for your Emperor and all his
stool pigeons."

The policeman's red mustache and beard began to bristle on his pale
face and he interrupted:

"And the army, tell me, what are you going to do about that?"

Lantier flew into a passion. He banged his fists down on the
newspapers as he yelled:

"I require the suppression of militarism, the fraternity of peoples. I
require the abolition of privileges, of titles, and of monopolies. I
require the equality of salaries, the division of benefits, the
glorification of the protectorate. All liberties, do you hear? All of
them! And divorce!"

"Yes, yes, divorce for morality!" insisted Boche.

Poisson had assumed a majestic air.

"Yet if I won't have your liberties, I'm free to refuse them," he
answered.

Lantier was choking with passion.

"If you don't want them--if you don't want them--" he replied. "No,
you're not free at all! If you don't want them, I'll send you off to
Devil's Island. Yes, Devil's Island with your Emperor and all the rats
of his crew."

They always quarreled thus every time they met. Gervaise, who did not
like arguments, usually interfered. She roused herself from the torpor
into which the sight of the box, full of the stale perfume of her past
love, had plunged her, and she drew the three men's attention to the
glasses.

"Ah! yes," said Lantier, becoming suddenly calm and taking his glass.
"Good health!"

"Good health!" replied Boche and Poisson, clinking glasses with him.

Boche, however, was moving nervously about, troubled by an anxiety as
he looked at the policeman out of the corner of his eye.

"All this between ourselves, eh, Monsieur Poisson?" murmured he at
length. "We say and show you things to show off."

But Poisson did not let him finish. He placed his hand upon his heart,
as though to explain that all remained buried there. He certainly did
not go spying about on his friends. Coupeau arriving, they emptied a
second quart. Then the policeman went off by way of the courtyard and
resumed his stiff and measured tread along the pavement.

At the beginning of the new arrangement, the entire routine of the
establishment was considerably upset. Lantier had his own separate
room, with his own entrance and his own key. However, since they had
decided not to close off the door between the rooms, he usually came
and went through the shop. Besides, the dirty clothes were an
inconvenience to Gervaise because her husband never made the case he
had promised and she had to tuck the dirty laundry into any odd corner
she could find. They usually ended up under the bed and this was not
very pleasant on warm summer nights. She also found it a nuisance
having to make up Etienne's bed every evening in the shop. When her
employees worked late, the lad had to sleep in a chair until they
finished.

Goujet had mentioned sending Etienne to Lille where a machinist he
knew was looking for apprentices. As the boy was unhappy at home and
eager to be out on his own, Gervaise seriously considered the
proposal. Her only fear was that Lantier would refuse. Since he had
come to live with them solely to be near his son, surely he wouldn't
want to lose him only two weeks after he moved in. However he approved
whole-heartedly when she timidly broached the matter to him. He said
that young men needed to see a bit of the country. The morning that
Etienne left Lantier made a speech to him, kissed him and ended by
saying:

"Never forget that a workingman is not a slave, and that whoever is
not a workingman is a lazy drone."

The household was now able to get into the new routine. Gervaise
became accustomed to having dirty laundry lying all around. Lantier
was forever talking of important business deals. Sometimes he went
out, wearing fresh linen and neatly combed. He would stay out all
night and on his return pretend that he was completely exhausted
because he had been discussing very serious matters. Actually he was
merely taking life easy. He usually slept until ten. In the afternoons
he would take a walk if the weather was nice. If it was raining, he
would sit in the shop reading his newspaper. This atmosphere suited
him. He always felt at his ease with women and enjoyed listening to
them.

Lantier first took his meals at Francois's, at the corner of the Rue
des Poissonniers. But of the seven days in the week he dined with the
Coupeaus on three or four; so much so that he ended by offering to
board with them and to pay them fifteen francs every Saturday. From
that time he scarcely ever left the house, but made himself completely
at home there. Morning to night he was in the shop, even giving orders
and attending to customers.

Lantier didn't like the wine from Francois's, so he persuaded Gervaise
to buy her wine from Vigouroux, the coal-dealer. Then he decided that
Coudeloup's bread was not baked to his satisfaction, so he sent
Augustine to the Viennese bakery on the Faubourg Poissonniers for
their bread. He changed from the grocer Lehongre but kept the butcher,
fat Charles, because of his political opinions. After a month he
wanted all the cooking done with olive oil. Clemence joked that with a
Provencal like him you could never wash out the oil stains. He wanted
his omelets fried on both sides, as hard as pancakes. He supervised
mother Coupeau's cooking, wanting his steaks cooked like shoe leather
and with garlic on everything. He got angry if she put herbs in the
salad.

"They're just weeds and some of them might be poisonous," he declared.
His favorite soup was made with over-boiled vermicelli. He would pour
in half a bottle of olive oil. Only he and Gervaise could eat this
soup, the others being too used to Parisian cooking.

Little by little Lantier also came to mixing himself up in the affairs
of the family. As the Lorilleuxs always grumbled at having to part
with the five francs for mother Coupeau, he explained that an action
could be brought against them. They must think that they had a set of
fools to deal with! It was ten francs a month which they ought to
give! And he would go up himself for the ten francs so boldly and yet
so amiably that the chainmaker never dared refuse them. Madame Lerat
also gave two five-franc pieces now. Mother Coupeau could have kissed
Lantier's hands. He was, moreover, the grand arbiter in all the
quarrels between the old woman and Gervaise. Whenever the laundress,
in a moment of impatience, behaved roughly to her mother-in-law and
the latter went and cried on her bed, he hustled them about and made
them kiss each other, asking them if they thought themselves amusing
with their bad tempers.

And Nana, too; she was being brought up badly, according to his idea.
In that he was right, for whenever the father spanked the child, the
mother took her part, and if the mother, in her turn, boxed her ears,
the father made a disturbance. Nana delighted at seeing her parents
abuse each other, and knowing that she was forgiven beforehand, was up
to all kinds of tricks. Her latest mania was to go and play in the
blacksmith shop opposite; she would pass the entire day swinging on
the shafts of the carts; she would hide with bands of urchins in the
remotest corners of the gray courtyard, lighted up with the red glare
of the forge; and suddenly she would reappear, running and shouting,
unkempt and dirty and followed by the troop of urchins, as though a
sudden clash of the hammers had frightened the ragamuffins away.
Lantier alone could scold her; and yet she knew perfectly well how to
get over him. This tricky little girl of ten would walk before him
like a lady, swinging herself about and casting side glances at him,
her eyes already full of vice. He had ended by undertaking her
education: he taught her to dance and to talk patois.

A year passed thus. In the neighborhood it was thought that Lantier
had a private income, for this was the only way to account for the
Coupeaus' grand style of living. No doubt Gervaise continued to earn
money; but now that she had to support two men in doing nothing, the
shop certainly could not suffice; more especially as the shop no
longer had so good a reputation, customers were leaving and the
workwomen were tippling from morning till night. The truth was that
Lantier paid nothing, neither for rent nor board. During the first
months he had paid sums on account, then he had contented himself with
speaking of a large amount he was going to receive, with which later
on he would pay off everything in a lump sum. Gervaise no longer dared
ask him for a centime. She had the bread, the wine, the meat, all on
credit. The bills increased everywhere at the rate of three and four
francs a day. She had not paid a sou to the furniture dealer nor to
the three comrades, the mason, the carpenter and the painter. All
these people commenced to grumble, and she was no longer greeted with
the same politeness at the shops.

She was as though intoxicated by a mania for getting into debt; she
tried to drown her thoughts, ordered the most expensive things, and
gave full freedom to her gluttony now that she no longer paid for
anything; she remained withal very honest at heart, dreaming of
earning from morning to night hundreds of francs, though she did not
exactly know how, to enable her to distribute handfuls of five-franc
pieces to her tradespeople. In short, she was sinking, and as she sank
lower and lower she talked of extending her business. Instead she went
deeper into debt. Clemence left around the middle of the summer
because there was no longer enough work for two women and she had not
been paid in several weeks.

During this impending ruin, Coupeau and Lantier were, in effect,
devouring the shop and growing fat on the ruin of the establishment.
At table they would challenge each other to take more helpings and
slap their rounded stomachs to make more room for dessert.

The great subject of conversation in the neighborhood was as to
whether Lantier had really gone back to his old footing with Gervaise.
On this point opinions were divided. According to the Lorilleuxs,
Clump-Clump was doing everything she could to hook Lantier again, but
he would no longer have anything to do with her because she was
getting old and faded and he had plenty of younger girls that were
prettier. On the other hand, according to the Boches, Gervaise had
gone back to her former mate the very first night, just as soon as
poor Coupeau had gone to sleep. The picture was not pretty, but there
were a lot of worse things in life, so folks ended by accepting the
threesome as altogether natural. In fact, they thought them rather
nice since there were never any fights and the outward decencies
remained. Certainly if you stuck your nose into some of the other
neighborhood households you could smell far worse things. So what if
they slept together like a nice little family. It never kept the
neighbors awake. Besides, everyone was still very much impressed by
Lantier's good manners. His charm helped greatly to keep tongues from
wagging. Indeed, when the fruit dealer insisted to the tripe seller
that there had been no intimacies, the latter appeared to feel that
this was really too bad, because it made the Coupeaus less
interesting.

Gervaise was quite at her ease in this matter, and not much troubled
with these thoughts. Things reached the point that she was accused of
being heartless. The family did not understand why she continued to
bear a grudge against the hatter. Madame Lerat now came over every
evening. She considered Lantier as utterly irresistible and said that
most ladies would be happy to fall into his arms. Madame Boche
declared that her own virtue would not be safe if she were ten years
younger. There was a sort of silent conspiracy to push Gervaise into
the arms of Lantier, as if all the women around her felt driven to
satisfy their own longings by giving her a lover. Gervaise didn't
understand this because she no longer found Lantier seductive.
Certainly he had changed for the better. He had gotten a sort of
education in the cafes and political meetings but she knew him well.
She could pierce to the depths of his soul and she found things there
that still gave her the shivers. Well, if the others found him so
attractive, why didn't they try it themselves. In the end she
suggested this one day to Virginie who seemed the most eager. Then, to
excite Gervaise, Madame Lerat and Virginie told her of the love of
Lantier and tall Clemence. Yes, she had not noticed anything herself;
but as soon as she went out on an errand, the hatter would bring the
workgirl into his room. Now people met them out together; he probably
went to see her at her own place.

"Well," said the laundress, her voice trembling slightly, "what can it
matter to me?"

She looked straight into Virginie's eyes. Did this woman still have it
in for her?

Virginie replied with an air of innocence:

"It can't matter to you, of course. Only, you ought to advise him to
break off with that girl, who is sure to cause him some
unpleasantness."

The worst of it was that Lantier, feeling himself supported by public
opinion, changed altogether in his behavior towards Gervaise. Now,
whenever he shook hands with her, he held her fingers for a minute
between his own. He tried her with his glance, fixing a bold look upon
her, in which she clearly read that he wanted her. If he passed behind
her, he dug his knees into her skirt, or breathed upon her neck. Yet
he waited a while before being rough and openly declaring himself. But
one evening, finding himself alone with her, he pushed her before him
without a word, and viewed her all trembling against the wall at the
back of the shop, and tried to kiss her. It so chanced that Goujet
entered just at that moment. Then she struggled and escaped. And all
three exchanged a few words, as though nothing had happened. Goujet,
his face deadly pale, looked on the ground, fancying that he had
disturbed them, and that she had merely struggled so as not to be
kissed before a third party.

The next day Gervaise moved restlessly about the shop. She was
miserable and unable to iron even a single handkerchief. She only
wanted to see Goujet and explain to him how Lantier happened to have
pinned her against the wall. But since Etienne had gone to Lille, she
had hesitated to visit Goujet's forge where she felt she would be
greeted by his fellow workers with secret laughter. This afternoon,
however, she yielded to the impulse. She took an empty basket and went
out under the pretext of going for the petticoats of her customer on
Rue des Portes-Blanches. Then, when she reached Rue Marcadet, she
walked very slowly in front of the bolt factory, hoping for a lucky
meeting. Goujet must have been hoping to see her, too, for within five
minutes he came out as if by chance.

"You have been on an errand," he said, smiling. "And now you are on
your way home."

Actually Gervaise had her back toward Rue des Poissonniers. He only
said that for something to say. They walked together up toward
Montmartre, but without her taking his arm. They wanted to get a bit
away from the factory so as not to seem to be having a rendezvous in
front of it. They turned into a vacant lot between a sawmill and a
button factory. It was like a small green meadow. There was even a
goat tied to a stake.

"It's strange," remarked Gervaise. "You'd think you were in the
country."

The went to sit under a dead tree. Gervaise placed the laundry basket
by her feet.

"Yes," Gervaise said, "I had an errand to do, and so I came out."

She felt deeply ashamed and was afraid to try to explain. Yet she
realized that they had come here to discuss it. It remained a
troublesome burden.

Then, all in a rush, with tears in her eyes, she told him of the death
that morning of Madame Bijard, her washerwoman. She had suffered
horrible agonies.

"Her husband caused it by kicking her in the stomach," she said in a
monotone. "He must have damaged her insides. /Mon Dieu!/ She was in
agony for three days with her stomach all swelled up. Plenty of
scoundrels have been sent to the galleys for less than that, but the
courts won't concern themselves with a wife-beater. Especially since
the woman said she had hurt herself falling. She wanted to save him
from the scaffold, but she screamed all night long before she died."

Goujet clenched his hands and remained silent.

"She weaned her youngest only two weeks ago, little Jules," Gervaise
went on. "That's lucky for the baby, he won't have to suffer. Still,
there's the child Lalie and she has two babies to look after. She
isn't eight yet, but she's already sensible. Her father will beat her
now even more than before."

Goujet gazed at her silently. Then, his lips trembling:

"You hurt me yesterday, yes, you hurt me badly."

Gervaise turned pale and clasped her hands as he continued.

"I thought it would happen. You should have told me, you should have
trusted me enough to confess what was happening, so as not to leave me
thinking that--"

Goujet could not finish the sentence. Gervaise stood up, realizing
that he thought she had gone back with Lantier as the neighbors
asserted. Stretching her arms toward him, she cried:

"No, no, I swear to you. He was pushing against me, trying to kiss me,
but his face never even touched mine. It's true, and that was the
first time he tried. Oh, I swear on my life, on the life of my
children, oh, believe me!"

Goujet was shaking his head. Gervaise said slowly:

"Monsieur Goujet, you know me well. You know that I do not lie. On my
word of honor, it never happened, and it never will, do you
understand? Never! I'd be the lowest of the low if it ever happened,
and I wouldn't deserve the friendship of an honest man like you."

She seemed so sincere that he took her hand and made her sit down
again. He could breathe freely; his heart rejoiced. This was the first
time he had ever held her hand like this. He pressed it in his own and
they both sat quietly for a time.

"I know your mother doesn't like me," Gervaise said in a low voice.
"Don't bother to deny it. We owe you so much money."

He squeezed her hand tightly. He didn't want to talk of money. Finally
he said:

"I've been thinking of something for a long time. You are not happy
where you are. My mother tells me things are getting worse for you.
Well, then, we can go away together."

She didn't understand at first and stared at him, startled by this
sudden declaration of a love that he had never mentioned.

Finally she asked:

"What do you mean?"

"We'll get away from here," he said, looking down at the ground.
"We'll go live somewhere else, in Belgium, if you wish. With both of
us working, we would soon be very comfortable."

Gervaise flushed. She thought she would have felt less shame if he had
taken her in his arms and kissed her. Goujet was an odd fellow,
proposing to elope, just the way it happens in novels. Well, she had
seen plenty of workingmen making up to married women, but they never
took them even as far as Saint-Denis.

"Ah, Monsieur Goujet," she murmured, not knowing what else to say.

"Don't you see?" he said. "There would only be the two of us. It
annoys me having others around."

Having regained her self-possession, however, she refused his
proposal.

"It's impossible, Monsieur Goujet. It would be very wrong. I'm a
married woman and I have children. We'd soon regret it. I know you
care for me, and I care for you also, too much to let you do anything
foolish. It's much better to stay just as we are. We have respect for
each other and that's a lot. It's been a comfort to me many times.
When people in our situation stay on the straight, it is better in the
end."

He nodded his head as he listened. He agreed with her and was unable
to offer any arguments. Suddenly he pulled her into his arms and
kissed her, crushing her. Then he let her go and said nothing more
about their love. She wasn't angry. She felt they had earned that
small moment of pleasure.

Goujet now didn't know what to do with his hands, so he went around
picking dandelions and tossing them into her basket. This amused him
and gradually soothed him. Gervaise was becoming relaxed and cheerful.
When they finally left the vacant lot they walked side by side and
talked of how much Etienne liked being at Lille. Her basket was full
of yellow dandelions.

Gervaise, at heart, did not feel as courageous when with Lantier as
she said. She was, indeed, perfectly resolved not to hear his
flattery, even with the slightest interest; but she was afraid, if
ever he should touch her, of her old cowardice, of that feebleness and
gloominess into which she allowed herself to glide, just to please
people. Lantier, however, did not avow his affection. He several times
found himself alone with her and kept quiet. He seemed to think of
marrying the tripe-seller, a woman of forty-five and very well
preserved. Gervaise would talk of the tripe-seller in Goujet's
presence, so as to set his mind at ease. She would say to Virginie and
Madame Lerat, whenever they were ringing the hatter's praises, that he
could very well do without her admiration, because all the women of
the neighborhood were smitten with him.

Coupeau went braying about everywhere that Lantier was a friend and a
true one. People might jabber about them; he knew what he knew and did
not care a straw for their gossip, for he had respectability on his
side. When they all three went out walking on Sundays, he made his
wife and the hatter walk arm-in-arm before him, just by way of
swaggering in the street; and he watched the people, quite prepared to
administer a drubbing if anyone had ventured on the least joke. It was
true that he regarded Lantier as a bit of a high flyer. He accused him
of avoiding hard liquor and teased him because he could read and spoke
like an educated man. Still, he accepted him as a regular comrade.
They were ideally suited to each other and friendship between men is
more substantial than love for a woman.

Coupeau and Lantier were forever going out junketing together. Lantier
would now borrow money from Gervaise--ten francs, twenty francs at a
time, whenever he smelt there was money in the house. Then on those
days he would keep Coupeau away from his work, talk of some distant
errand and take him with him. Then seated opposite to each other in
the corner of some neighboring eating house, they would guzzle fancy
dishes which one cannot get at home and wash them down with bottles of
expensive wine. The zinc-worker would have preferred to booze in a
less pretentious place, but he was impressed by the aristocratic
tastes of Lantier, who would discover on the bill of fare dishes with
the most extraordinary names.

It was hard to understand a man so hard to please. Maybe it was from
being a southerner. Lantier didn't like anything too rich and argued
about every dish, sending back meat that was too salty or too peppery.
He hated drafts. If a door was left open, he complained loudly. At the
same time, he was very stingy, only giving the waiter a tip of two
sous for a meal of seven or eight francs. He was treated with respect
in spite of that.

The pair were well known along the exterior boulevards, from
Batignolles to Belleville. They would go to the Grand Rue des
Batignolles to eat tripe cooked in the Caen style. At the foot of
Montmartre they obtained the best oysters in the neighborhood at the
"Town of Bar-le-Duc." When they ventured to the top of the height as
far as the "Galette Windmill" they had a stewed rabbit. The "Lilacs,"
in the Rue des Martyrs, had a reputation for their calf's head, whilst
the restaurant of the "Golden Lion" and the "Two Chestnut Trees," in
the Chaussee Clignancourt, served them stewed kidneys which made them
lick their lips. Usually they went toward Belleville where they had
tables reserved for them at some places of such excellent repute that
you could order anything with your eyes closed. These eating sprees
were always surreptitious and the next day they would refer to them
indirectly while playing with the potatoes served by Gervaise. Once
Lantier brought a woman with him to the "Galette Windmill" and Coupeau
left immediately after dessert.

One naturally cannot both guzzle and work; so that ever since the
hatter was made one of the family, the zinc-worker, who was already
pretty lazy, had got to the point of never touching a tool. When tired
of doing nothing, he sometimes let himself be prevailed upon to take a
job. Then his comrade would look him up and chaff him unmercifully
when he found him hanging to his knotty cord like a smoked ham, and he
would call to him to come down and have a glass of wine. And that
settled it. The zinc-worker would send the job to blazes and commence
a booze which lasted days and weeks. Oh, it was a famous booze--a
general review of all the dram shops of the neighborhood, the
intoxication of the morning slept off by midday and renewed in the
evening; the goes of "vitriol" succeeded one another, becoming lost in
the depths of the night, like the Venetian lanterns of an
illumination, until the last candle disappeared with the last glass!
That rogue of a hatter never kept on to the end. He let the other get
elevated, then gave him the slip and returned home smiling in his
pleasant way. He could drink a great deal without people noticing it.
When one got to know him well one could only tell it by his half-
closed eyes and his overbold behavior to women. The zinc-worker, on
the contrary, became quite disgusting, and could no longer drink
without putting himself into a beastly state.

Thus, towards the beginning of November, Coupeau went in for a booze
which ended in a most dirty manner, both for himself and the others.
The day before he had been offered a job. This time Lantier was full
of fine sentiments; he lauded work, because work ennobles a man. In
the morning he even rose before it was light, for he gravely wished to
accompany his friend to the workshop, honoring in him the workman
really worthy of the name. But when they arrived before the "Little
Civet," which was just opening, they entered to have a plum in brandy,
only one, merely to drink together to the firm observance of a good
resolution. On a bench opposite the counter, and with his back against
the wall, Bibi-the-Smoker was sitting smoking with a sulky look on his
face.

"Hallo! Here's Bibi having a snooze," said Coupeau. "Are you down in
the dumps, old bloke?"

"No, no," replied the comrade, stretching his arm. "It's the employers
who disgust me. I sent mine to the right about yesterday. They're all
toads and scoundrels."

Bibi-the-Smoker accepted a plum. He was, no doubt, waiting there on
that bench for someone to stand him a drink. Lantier, however, took
the part of the employers; they often had some very hard times, as he
who had been in business himself well knew. The workers were a bad
lot, forever getting drunk! They didn't take their work seriously.
Sometimes they quit in the middle of a job and only returned when they
needed something in their pockets. Then Lantier would switch his
attack to the employers. They were nasty exploiters, regular
cannibals. But he could sleep with a clear conscience as he had always
acted as a friend to his employees. He didn't want to get rich the way
others did.

"Let's be off, my boy," he said, speaking to Coupeau. "We must be
going or we shall be late."

Bibi-the-Smoker followed them, swinging his arms. Outside the sun was
scarcely rising, the pale daylight seemed dirtied by the muddy
reflection of the pavement; it had rained the night before and it was
very mild. The gas lamps had just been turned out; the Rue des
Poissonniers, in which shreds of night rent by the houses still
floated, was gradually filling with the dull tramp of the workmen
descending towards Paris. Coupeau, with his zinc-worker's bag slung
over his shoulder, walked along in the imposing manner of a fellow who
feels in good form for a change. He turned round and asked:

"Bibi, do you want a job. The boss told me to bring a pal if I could."

"No thanks," answered Bibi-the-Smoker; "I'm purging myself. You should
ask My-Boots. He was looking for something yesterday. Wait a minute.
My-Boots is most likely in there."

And as they reached the bottom of the street they indeed caught sight
of My-Boots inside Pere Colombe's. In spite of the early hour
l'Assommoir was flaring, the shutters down, the gas lighted. Lantier
stood at the door, telling Coupeau to make haste, because they had
only ten minutes left.

"What! You're going to work for that rascal Bourguignon?" yelled My-
Boots, when the zinc-worker had spoken to him. "You'll never catch me
in his hutch again! No, I'd rather go till next year with my tongue
hanging out of my mouth. But, old fellow, you won't stay three days,
and it's I who tell you so."

"Really now, is it such a dirty hole?" asked Coupeau anxiously.

"Oh, it's about the dirtiest. You can't move there. The ape's for ever
on your back. And such queer ways too--a missus who always says you're
drunk, a shop where you mustn't spit. I sent them to the right about
the first night, you know."

"Good; now I'm warned. I shan't stop there for ever. I'll just go this
morning to see what it's like; but if the boss bothers me, I'll catch
him up and plant him upon his missus, you know, bang together like two
fillets of sole!"

Then Coupeau thanked his friend for the useful information and shook
his hand. As he was about to leave, My-Boots cursed angrily. Was that
lousy Bourguignon going to stop them from having a drink? Weren't they
free any more? He could well wait another five minutes. Lantier came
in to share in the round and they stood together at the counter. My-
Boots, with his smock black with dirt and his cap flattened on his
head had recently been proclaimed king of pigs and drunks after he had
eaten a salad of live beetles and chewed a piece of a dead cat.

"Say there, old Borgia," he called to Pere Colombe, "give us some of
your yellow stuff, first class mule's wine."

And when Pere Colombe, pale and quiet in his blue-knitted waistcoat,
had filled the four glasses, these gentlemen tossed them off, so as
not to let the liquor get flat.

"That does some good when it goes down," murmured Bibi-the-Smoker.

The comic My-Boots had a story to tell. He was so drunk on the Friday
that his comrades had stuck his pipe in his mouth with a handful of
plaster. Anyone else would have died of it; he merely strutted about
and puffed out his chest.

"Do you gentlemen require anything more?" asked Pere Colombe in his
oily voice.

"Yes, fill us up again," said Lantier. "It's my turn."

Now they were talking of women. Bibi-the-Smoker had taken his girl to
an aunt's at Montrouge on the previous Sunday. Coupeau asked for the
news of the "Indian Mail," a washerwoman of Chaillot who was known in
the establishment. They were about to drink, when My-Boots loudly
called to Goujet and Lorilleux who were passing by. They came just to
the door, but would not enter. The blacksmith did not care to take
anything. The chainmaker, pale and shivering, held in his pocket the
gold chains he was going to deliver; and he coughed and asked them to
excuse him, saying that the least drop of brandy would nearly make him
split his sides.

"There are hypocrites for you!" grunted My-Boots. "I bet they have
their drinks on the sly."

And when he had poked his nose in his glass he attacked Pere Colombe.

"Vile druggist, you've changed the bottle! You know it's no good your
trying to palm your cheap stuff off on me."

The day had advanced; a doubtful sort of light lit up l'Assommoir,
where the landlord was turning out the gas. Coupeau found excuses for
his brother-in-law who could not stand drink, which after all was no
crime. He even approved Goujet's behavior for it was a real blessing
never to be thirsty. And as he talked of going off to his work
Lantier, with his grand air of a gentleman, sharply gave him a lesson.
One at least stood one's turn before sneaking off; one should not
leave one's friends like a mean blackguard, even when going to do
one's duty.

"Is he going to badger us much longer about his work?" cried My-Boots.

"So this is your turn, sir?" asked Pere Colombe of Coupeau.

The latter paid. But when it came to Bibi-the-Smoker's turn he
whispered to the landlord who refused with a shake of the head. My-
Boots understood, and again set to abusing the old Jew Colombe. What!
A rascal like him dared to behave in that way to a comrade! Everywhere
else one could get drink on tick! It was only in such low boozing-dens
that one was insulted! The landlord remained calm, leaning his big
fists on the edge of the counter. He politely said:

"Lend the gentleman some money--that will be far simpler."

"/Mon Dieu!/ Yes, I'll lend him some," yelled My-Boots. "Here! Bibi,
throw this money in his face, the limb of Satan!"

Then, excited and annoyed at seeing Coupeau with his bag slung over
his shoulder, he continued speaking to the zinc-worker:

"You look like a wet-nurse. Drop your brat. It'll give you a hump-
back."

Coupeau hesitated an instant; and then, quietly, as though he had only
made up his mind after considerable reflection, he laid his bag on the
ground saying:

"It's too late now. I'll go to Bourguignon's after lunch. I'll tell
him that the missus was ill. Listen, Pere Colombe, I'll leave my tools
under this seat and I'll call for them at twelve o'clock."

Lantier gave his blessing to this arrangement with an approving nod.
Labor was necessary, yes, but when you're with good friends, courtesy
comes first. Now the four had five hours of idleness before them. They
were full of noisy merriment. Coupeau was especially relieved. They
had another round and then went to a small bar that had a billiard
table.

At first Lantier turned up his nose at this establishment because it
was rather shabby. So much liquor had been spilled on the billiard
table that the balls stuck to it. Once the game got started though,
Lantier recovered his good humor and began to flaunt his extraordinary
knack with a cue.

When lunch time came Coupeau had an idea. He stamped his feet and
cried:

"We must go and fetch Salted-Mouth. I know where he's working. We'll
take him to Mere Louis' to have some pettitoes."

The idea was greeted with acclamation. Yes, Salted-Mouth, otherwise
Drink-without-Thirst, was no doubt in want of some pettitoes. They
started off. Coupeau took them to the bolt factory in the Rue
Marcadet. As they arrived a good half hour before the time the workmen
came out, the zinc-worker gave a youngster two sous to go in and tell
Salted-Mouth that his wife was ill and wanted him at once. The
blacksmith made his appearance, waddling in his walk, looking very
calm, and scenting a tuck-out.

"Ah! you jokers!" said he, as soon as he caught sight of them hiding
in a doorway. "I guessed it. Well, what are we going to eat?"

At mother Louis', whilst they sucked the little bones of the
pettitoes, they again fell to abusing the employers. Salted-Mouth,
otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, related that they had a most pressing
order to execute at the shop. Oh! the ape was pleasant for the time
being. One could be late, and he would say nothing; he no doubt
considered himself lucky when one turned up at all. At any rate, no
boss would dare to throw Salted-Mouth out the door, because you
couldn't find lads of his capacity any more. After the pettitoes they
had an omelet. When each of them had emptied his bottle, Mere Louis
brought out some Auvergne wine, thick enough to cut with a knife. The
party was really warming up.

"What do you think is the ape's latest idea?" cried Salted-Mouth at
dessert. "Why, he's been and put a bell up in his shed! A bell! That's
good for slaves. Ah, well! It can ring to-day! They won't catch me
again at the anvil! For five days past I've been sticking there; I may
give myself a rest now. If he deducts anything, I'll send him to
blazes."

"I," said Coupeau, with an air of importance, "I'm obliged to leave
you; I'm off to work. Yes, I promised my wife. Amuse yourselves; my
spirit you know remains with my pals."

The others chuffed him. But he seemed so decided that they all
accompanied him when he talked of going to fetch his tools from Pere
Colombe's. He took his bag from under the seat and laid it on the
ground before him whilst they had a final drink. But at one o'clock
the party was still standing drinks. Then Coupeau, with a bored
gesture placed the tools back again under the seat. They were in his
way; he could not get near the counter without stumbling against them.
It was too absurd; he would go to Bourguignon's on the morrow. The
other four, who were quarrelling about the question of salaries, were
not at all surprised when the zinc-worker, without any explanation,
proposed a little stroll on the Boulevard, just to stretch their legs.
They didn't go very far. They seemed to have nothing to say to each
other out in the fresh air. Without even consulting each other with so
much as a nudge, they slowly and instinctively ascended the Rue des
Poissonniers, where they went to Francois's and had a glass of wine
out of the bottle. Lantier pushed his comrades inside the private room
at the back; it was a narrow place with only one table in it, and was
separated from the shop by a dull glazed partition. He liked to do his
drinking in private rooms because it seemed more respectable. Didn't
they like it here? It was as comfortable as being at home. You could
even take a nap here without being embarrassed. He called for the
newspaper, spread it out open before him, and looked through it,
frowning the while. Coupeau and My-Boots had commenced a game of
piquet. Two bottles of wine and five glasses were scattered about the
table.

They emptied their glasses. Then Lantier read out loud:

"A frightful crime has just spread consternation throughout the
Commune of Gaillon, Department of Seine-et-Marne. A son has killed his
father with blows from a spade in order to rob him of thirty sous."

They all uttered a cry of horror. There was a fellow whom they would
have taken great pleasure in seeing guillotined! No, the guillotine
was not enough; he deserved to be cut into little pieces. The story of
an infanticide equally aroused their indignation; but the hatter,
highly moral, found excuses for the woman, putting all the wrong on
the back of her husband; for after all, if some beast of a man had not
put the wretched woman into the way of bleak poverty, she could not
have drowned it in a water closet.

They were most delighted though by the exploit of a Marquis who,
coming out of a dance hall at two in the morning, had defended himself
against an attack by three blackguards on the Boulevard des Invalides.
Without taking off his gloves, he had disposed of the first two
villains by ramming his head into their stomachs, and then had marched
the third one off to the police. What a man! Too bad he was a noble.

"Listen to this now," continued Lantier. "Here's some society news: 'A
marriage is arranged between the eldest daughter of the Countess de
Bretigny and the young Baron de Valancay, aide-de-camp to His Majesty.
The wedding trousseau will contain more than three hundred thousand
francs' worth of lace."

"What's that to us?" interrupted Bibi-the-Smoker. "We don't want to
know the color of her mantle. The girl can have no end of lace;
nevertheless she'll see the folly of loving."

As Lantier seemed about to continue his reading, Salted-Mouth,
otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, took the newspaper from him and sat
upon it, saying:

"Ah! no, that's enough! This is all the paper is good for."

Meanwhile, My-Boots, who had been looking at his hand, triumphantly
banged his fist down on the table. He scored ninety-three.

"I've got the Revolution!" he exulted.

"You're out of luck, comrade," the others told Coupeau.

They ordered two fresh bottles. The glasses were filled up again as
fast as they were emptied, the booze increased. Towards five o'clock
it began to get disgusting, so much so that Lantier kept very quiet,
thinking of how to give the others the slip; brawling and throwing the
wine about was no longer his style. Just then Coupeau stood up to make
the drunkard's sign of the cross. Touching his head he pronounced
Montpernasse, then Menilmonte as he brought his hand to his right
shoulder, Bagnolet giving himself a blow in the chest, and wound up by
saying stewed rabbit three times as he hit himself in the pit of the
stomach. Then the hatter took advantage of the clamor which greeted
the performance of this feat and quietly made for the door. His
comrades did not even notice his departure. He had already had a
pretty good dose. But once outside he shook himself and regained his
self-possession; and he quietly made for the shop, where he told
Gervaise that Coupeau was with some friends.

Two days passed by. The zinc-worker had not returned. He was reeling
about the neighborhood, but no one knew exactly where. Several
persons, however, stated that they had seen him at mother Baquet's, at
the "Butterfly," and at the "Little Old Man with a Cough." Only some
said that he was alone, whilst others affirmed that he was in the
company of seven or eight drunkards like himself. Gervaise shrugged
her shoulders in a resigned sort of way. /Mon Dieu!/ She just had to
get used to it. She never ran about after her old man; she even went
out of her way if she caught sight of him inside a wineshop, so as to
not anger him; and she waited at home till he returned, listening at
night-time to hear if he was snoring outside the door. He would sleep
on a rubbish heap, or on a seat, or in a piece of waste land, or
across a gutter. On the morrow, after having only badly slept off his
booze of the day before, he would start off again, knocking at the
doors of all the consolation dealers, plunging afresh into a furious
wandering, in the midst of nips of spirits, glasses of wine, losing
his friends and then finding them again, going regular voyages from
which he returned in a state of stupor, seeing the streets dance, the
night fall and the day break, without any other thought than to drink
and sleep off the effects wherever he happened to be. When in the
latter state, the world was ended so far as he was concerned. On the
second day, however, Gervaise went to Pere Colombe's l'Assommoir to
find out something about him; he had been there another five times,
they were unable to tell her anything more. All she could do was to
take away his tools which he had left under a seat.

In the evening Lantier, seeing that the laundress seemed very worried,
offered to take her to a music-hall, just by way of passing a pleasant
hour or two. She refused at first, she was in no mood for laughing.
Otherwise she would not have said, "no," for the hatter made the
proposal in too straightforward a manner for her to feel any mistrust.
He seemed to feel for her in quite a paternal way. Never before had
Coupeau slept out two nights running. So that in spite of herself, she
would go every ten minutes to the door, with her iron in her hand, and
look up and down the street to see if her old man was coming.

It might be that Coupeau had broken a leg, or fallen under a wagon and
been crushed and that might be good riddance to bad rubbish. She saw
no reason for cherishing in her heart any affection for a filthy
character like him, but it was irritating, all the same, to have to
wonder every night whether he would come in or not. When it got dark,
Lantier again suggested the music-hall, and this time she accepted.
She decided it would be silly to deny herself a little pleasure when
her husband had been out on the town for three days. If he wasn't
coming in, then she might as well go out herself. Let the entire dump
burn up if it felt like it. She might even put a torch to it herself.
She was getting tired of the boring monotony of her present life.

They ate their dinner quickly. Then, when she went off at eight
o'clock, arm-in-arm with the hatter, Gervaise told mother Coupeau and
Nana to go to bed at once. The shop was shut and the shutters up. She
left by the door opening into the courtyard and gave Madame Boche the
key, asking her, if her pig of a husband came home, to have the
kindness to put him to bed. The hatter was waiting for her under the
big doorway, arrayed in his best and whistling a tune. She had on her
silk dress. They walked slowly along the pavement, keeping close to
each other, lighted up by the glare from the shop windows which showed
them smiling and talking together in low voices.

The music-hall was in the Boulevard de Rochechouart. It had originally
been a little cafe and had been enlarged by means of a kind of wooden
shed erected in the courtyard. At the door a string of glass globes
formed a luminous porch. Tall posters pasted on boards stood upon the
ground, close to the gutter.

"Here we are," said Lantier. "To-night, first appearance of
Mademoiselle Amanda, serio-comic."

Then he caught sight of Bibi-the-Smoker, who was also reading the
poster. Bibi had a black eye; some punch he had run up against the day
before.

"Well! Where's Coupeau?" inquired the hatter, looking about. "Have
you, then, lost Coupeau?"

"Oh! long ago, since yesterday," replied the other. "There was a bit
of a free-for-all on leaving mother Baquet's. I don't care for
fisticuffs. We had a row, you know, with mother Baquet's pot-boy,
because he wanted to make us pay for a quart twice over. Then I left.
I went and had a bit of a snooze."

He was still yawning; he had slept eighteen hours at a stretch. He
was, moreover, quite sobered, with a stupid look on his face, and his
jacket smothered with fluff; for he had no doubt tumbled into bed with
his clothes on.

"And you don't know where my husband is, sir?" asked the laundress.

"Well, no, not a bit. It was five o'clock when we left mother
Baquet's. That's all I know about it. Perhaps he went down the street.
Yes, I fancy now that I saw him go to the 'Butterfly' with a coachman.
Oh! how stupid it is! Really, we deserve to be shot."

Lantier and Gervaise spent a very pleasant evening at the music-hall.
At eleven o'clock when the place closed, they strolled home without
hurrying themselves. The cold was quite sharp. People seemed to be in
groups. Some of the girls were giggling in the darkness as their men
pressed close to them. Lantier was humming one of Mademoiselle
Amanda's songs. Gervaise, with her head spinning from too much drink,
hummed the refrain with him. It had been very warm at the music-hall
and the two drinks she had had, along with all the smoke, had upset
her stomach a bit. She had been quite impressed with Mademoiselle
Amanda. She wouldn't dare to appear in public wearing so little, but
she had to admit that the lady had lovely skin.

"Everyone's asleep," said Gervaise, after ringing three times without
the Boches opening the door.

At length the door opened, but inside the porch it was very dark, and
when she knocked at the window of the concierge's room to ask for her
key, the concierge, who was half asleep, pulled out some rigmarole
which she could make nothing of at first. She eventually understood
that Poisson, the policeman, had brought Coupeau home in a frightful
state, and that the key was no doubt in the lock.

"The deuce!" murmured Lantier, when they had entered, "whatever has he
been up to here? The stench is abominable."

There was indeed a most powerful stench. As Gervaise went to look for
matches, she stepped into something messy. After she succeeded in
lighting a candle, a pretty sight met their eyes. Coupeau appeared to
have disgorged his very insides. The bed was splattered all over, so
was the carpet, and even the bureau had splashes on its sides. Besides
that, he had fallen from the bed where Poisson had probably thrown
him, and was snoring on the floor in the midst of the filth like a pig
wallowing in the mire, exhaling his foul breath through his open
mouth. His grey hair was straggling into the puddle around his head.

"Oh! the pig! the pig!" repeated Gervaise, indignant and exasperated.
"He's dirtied everything. No, a dog wouldn't have done that, even a
dead dog is cleaner."

They both hesitated to move, not knowing where to place their feet.
Coupeau had never before come home and put the bedroom into such a
shocking state. This sight was a blow to whatever affection his wife
still had for him. Previously she had been forgiving and not seriously
offended, even when he had been blind drunk. But this made her sick;
it was too much. She wouldn't have touched Coupeau for the world, and
just the thought of this filthy bum touching her caused a repugnance
such as she might have felt had she been required to sleep beside the
corpse of someone who had died from a terrible disease.

"Oh, I must get into that bed," murmured she. "I can't go and sleep in
the street. Oh! I'll crawl into it foot first."

She tried to step over the drunkard, but had to catch hold of a corner
of the chest of drawers to save herself from slipping in the mess.
Coupeau completely blocked the way to the bed. Then, Lantier, who
laughed to himself on seeing that she certainly could not sleep on her
own pillow that night, took hold of her hand, saying, in a low and
angry voice:

"Gervaise, he is a pig."

She understood what he meant and pulled her hand free. She sighed to
herself, and, in her bewilderment, addressed him familiarly, as in the
old days.

"No, leave me alone, Auguste. Go to your own bed. I'll manage somehow
to lie at the foot of the bed."

"Come, Gervaise, don't be foolish," resumed he. "It's too abominable;
you can't remain here. Come with me. He won't hear us. What are you
afraid of?"

"No," she replied firmly, shaking her head vigorously. Then, to show
that she would remain where she was, she began to take off her
clothes, throwing her silk dress over a chair. She was quickly in only
her chemise and petticoat. Well, it was her own bed. She wanted to
sleep in her own bed and made two more attempts to reach a clean
corner of the bed.

Lantier, having no intention of giving up, whispered things to her.

What a predicament she was in, with a louse of a husband that
prevented her from crawling under her own blankets and a low skunk
behind her just waiting to take advantage of the situation to possess
her again. She begged Lantier to be quiet. Turning toward the small
room where Nana and mother Coupeau slept, she listened anxiously. She
could hear only steady breathing.

"Leave me alone, Auguste," she repeated. "You'll wake them. Be
sensible."

Lantier didn't answer, but just smiled at her. Then he began to kiss
her on the ear just as in the old days.

Gervaise felt like sobbing. Her strength deserted her; she felt a
great buzzing in her ears, a violent tremor passed through her. She
advanced another step forward. And she was again obliged to draw back.
It was not possible, the disgust was too great. She felt on the verge
of vomiting herself. Coupeau, overpowered by intoxication, lying as
comfortably as though on a bed of down, was sleeping off his booze,
without life in his limbs, and with his mouth all on one side. The
whole street might have entered and laughed at him, without a hair of
his body moving.

"Well, I can't help it," she faltered. "It's his own fault. /Mon
Dieu!/ He's forcing me out of my own bed. I've no bed any longer. No,
I can't help it. It's his own fault."

She was trembling so she scarcely knew what she was doing. While
Lantier was urging her into his room, Nana's face appeared at one of
the glass panes in the door of the little room. The young girl, pale
from sleep, had awakened and gotten out of bed quietly. She stared at
her father lying in his vomit. Then, she stood watching until her
mother disappeared into Lantier's room. She watched with the intensity
and the wide-open eyes of a vicious child aflame with curiosity.



                              CHAPTER IX

That winter mother Coupeau nearly went off in one of her coughing
fits. Each December she could count on her asthma keeping her on her
back for two and three weeks at a time. She was no longer fifteen, she
would be seventy-three on Saint-Anthony's day. With that she was very
rickety, getting a rattling in her throat for nothing at all, though
she was plump and stout. The doctor said she would go off coughing,
just time enough to say: "Good-night, the candle's out!"

When she was in her bed mother Coupeau became positively unbearable.
It is true though that the little room in which she slept with Nana
was not at all gay. There was barely room for two chairs between the
beds. The wallpaper, a faded gray, hung loose in long strips. The
small window near the ceiling let in only a dim light. It was like a
cavern. At night, as she lay awake, she could listen to the breathing
of the sleeping Nana as a sort of distraction; but in the day-time, as
there was no one to keep her company from morning to night, she
grumbled and cried and repeated to herself for hours together, as she
rolled her head on the pillow:

"Good heavens! What a miserable creature I am! Good heavens! What a
miserable creature I am! They'll leave me to die in prison, yes, in
prison!"

As soon as anyone called, Virginie or Madame Boche, to ask after her
health, she would not reply directly, but immediately started on her
list of complaints: "Oh, I pay dearly for the food I eat here. I'd be
much better off with strangers. I asked for a cup of tisane and they
brought me an entire pot of hot water. It was a way of saying that I
drank too much. I brought Nana up myself and she scurries away in her
bare feet every morning and I never see her again all day. Then at
night she sleeps so soundly that she never wakes up to ask me if I'm
in pain. I'm just a nuisance to them. They're waiting for me to die.
That will happen soon enough. I don't even have a son any more; that
laundress has taken him from me. She'd beat me to death if she wasn't
afraid of the law."

Gervaise was indeed rather hasty at times. The place was going to the
dogs, everyone's temper was getting spoilt and they sent each other to
the right about for the least word. Coupeau, one morning that he had a
hangover, exclaimed: "The old thing's always saying she's going to
die, and yet she never does!" The words struck mother Coupeau to the
heart. They frequently complained of how much she cost them, observing
that they would save a lot of money when she was gone.

When at her worst that winter, one afternoon, when Madame Lorilleux
and Madame Lerat had met at her bedside, mother Coupeau winked her eye
as a signal to them to lean over her. She could scarcely speak. She
rather hissed than said in a low voice:

"It's becoming indecent. I heard them last night. Yes, Clump-clump and
the hatter. And they were kicking up such a row together! Coupeau's
too decent for her."

And she related in short sentences, coughing and choking between each,
that her son had come home dead drunk the night before. Then, as she
was not asleep, she was easily able to account for all the noises, of
Clump-clump's bare feet tripping over the tiled floor, the hissing
voice of the hatter calling her, the door between the two rooms gently
closed, and the rest. It must have lasted till daylight. She could not
tell the exact time, because, in spite of her efforts, she had ended
by falling into a dose.

"What's most disgusting is that Nana might have heard everything,"
continued she. "She was indeed restless all the night, she who usually
sleeps so sound. She tossed about and kept turning over as though
there had been some lighted charcoal in her bed."

The other two women did not seem at all surprised.

"Of course!" murmured Madame Lorilleux, "it probably began the very
first night. But as it pleases Coupeau, we've no business to
interfere. All the same, it's not very respectable."

"As for me," declared Madame Lerat through clenched teeth, "if I'd
been there, I'd have thrown a fright into them. I'd have shouted
something, anything. A doctor's maid told me once that the doctor had
told her that a surprise like that, at a certain moment, could strike
a woman dead. If she had died right there, that would have been well,
wouldn't it? She would have been punished right where she had sinned."

It wasn't long until the entire neighborhood knew that Gervaise
visited Lantier's room every night. Madame Lorilleux was loudly
indignant, calling her brother a poor fool whose wife had shamed him.
And her poor mother, forced to live in the midst of such horrors. As a
result, the neighbors blamed Gervaise. Yes, she must have led Lantier
astray; you could see it in her eyes. In spite of the nasty gossip,
Lantier was still liked because he was always so polite. He always had
candy or flowers to give the ladies. /Mon Dieu!/ Men shouldn't be
expected to push away women who threw themselves at them. There was no
excuse for Gervaise. She was a disgrace. The Lorilleuxs used to bring
Nana up to their apartment in order to find out more details from her,
their godchild. But Nana would put on her expression of innocent
stupidity and lower her long silky eyelashes to hide the fire in her
eyes as she replied.

In the midst of this general indignation, Gervaise lived quietly on,
feeling tired out and half asleep. At first she considered herself
very sinful and felt a disgust for herself. When she left Lantier's
room she would wash her hands and scrub herself as if trying to get
rid of an evil stain. If Coupeau then tried to joke with her, she
would fly into a passion, and run and shiveringly dress herself in the
farthest corner of the shop; neither would she allow Lantier near her
soon after her husband had kissed her. She would have liked to have
changed her skin as she changed men. But she gradually became
accustomed to it. Soon it was too much trouble to scrub herself each
time. Her thirst for happiness led her to enjoy as much as she could
the difficult situation. She had always been disposed to make
allowances for herself, so why not for others? She only wanted to
avoid causing trouble. As long as the household went along as usual,
there was nothing to complain about.

Then, after all, she could not be doing anything to make Coupeau stop
drinking; matters were arranged so easily to the general satisfaction.
One is generally punished if one does what is not right. His
dissoluteness had gradually become a habit. Now it was as regular an
affair as eating and drinking. Each time Coupeau came home drunk, she
would go to Lantier's room. This was usually on Mondays, Tuesdays and
Wednesdays. Sometimes on other nights, if Coupeau was snoring too
loudly, she would leave in the middle of the night. It was not that
she cared more for Lantier, but just that she slept better in his
room.

Mother Coupeau never dared speak openly of it. But after a quarrel,
when the laundress had bullied her, the old woman was not sparing in
her allusions. She would say that she knew men who were precious fools
and women who were precious hussies, and she would mutter words far
more biting, with the sharpness of language pertaining to an old
waistcoat-maker. The first time this had occurred Gervaise looked at
her straight in the face without answering. Then, also avoiding going
into details, she began to defend herself with reasons given in a
general sort of way. When a woman had a drunkard for a husband, a pig
who lived in filth, that woman was to be excused if she sought for
cleanliness elsewhere. Once she pointed out that Lantier was just as
much her husband as Coupeau was. Hadn't she known him since she was
fourteen and didn't she have children by him?

Anyway, she'd like to see anyone make trouble for her. She wasn't the
only one around the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. Madame Vigouroux, the coal-
dealer had a merry dance from morning to night. Then there was the
grocer's wife, Madame Lehongre with her brother-in-law. /Mon Dieu!/
What a slob of a fellow. He wasn't worth touching with a shovel. Even
the neat little clockmaker was said to have carried on with his own
daughter, a streetwalker. Ah, the entire neighborhood. Oh, she knew
plenty of dirt.

One day when mother Coupeau was more pointed than usual in her
observations, Gervaise had replied to her, clinching her teeth:

"You're confined to your bed and you take advantage of it. Listen!
You're wrong. You see that I behave nicely to you, for I've never
thrown your past life into your teeth. Oh! I know all about it. No,
don't cough. I've finished what I had to say. It's only to request you
to mind your own business, that's all!"

The old woman almost choked. On the morrow, Goujet having called about
his mother's washing when Gervaise happened to be out, mother Coupeau
called him to her and kept him some time seated beside her bed. She
knew all about the blacksmith's friendship, and had noticed that for
some time past he had looked dismal and wretched, from a suspicion of
the melancholy things that were taking place. So, for the sake of
gossiping, and out of revenge for the quarrel of the day before, she
bluntly told him the truth, weeping and complaining as though
Gervaise's wicked behavior did her some special injury. When Goujet
quitted the little room, he leant against the wall, almost stifling
with grief. Then, when the laundress returned home, mother Coupeau
called to her that Madame Goujet required her to go round with her
clothes, ironed or not; and she was so animated that Gervaise, seeing
something was wrong, guessed what had taken place and had a
presentiment of the unpleasantness which awaited her.

Very pale, her limbs already trembling, she placed the things in a
basket and started off. For years past she had not returned the
Goujets a sou of their money. The debt still amounted to four hundred
and twenty-five francs. She always spoke of her embarrassments and
received the money for the washing. It filled her with shame, because
she seemed to be taking advantage of the blacksmith's friendship to
make a fool of him. Coupeau, who had now become less scrupulous, would
chuckle and say that Goujet no doubt had fooled around with her a bit,
and had so paid himself. But she, in spite of the relations she had
fallen into with Coupeau, would indignantly ask her husband if he
already wished to eat of that sort of bread. She would not allow
anyone to say a word against Goujet in her presence; her affection for
the blacksmith remained like a last shred of her honor. Thus, every
time she took the washing home to those worthy people, she felt a
spasm of her heart the moment she put a foot on their stairs.

"Ah! it's you, at last!" said Madame Goujet sharply, on opening the
door to her. "When I'm in want of death, I'll send you to fetch him."

Gervaise entered, greatly embarrassed, not even daring to mutter an
excuse. She was no longer punctual, never came at the time arranged,
and would keep her customers waiting for days on end. Little by little
she was giving way to a system of thorough disorder.

"For a week past I've been expecting you," continued the lace-mender.
"And you tell falsehoods too; you send your apprentice to me with all
sorts of stories; you are then busy with my things, you will deliver
them the same evening, or else you've had an accident, the bundle's
fallen into a pail of water. Whilst all this is going on, I waste my
time, nothing turns up, and it worries me exceedingly. No, you're most
unreasonable. Come, what have you in your basket? Is everything there
now? Have you brought me the pair of sheets you've been keeping back
for a month past, and the chemise which was missing the last time you
brought home the washing?"

"Yes, yes," murmured Gervaise, "I have the chemise. Here it is."

But Madame Goujet cried out. That chemise was not hers, she would have
nothing to do with it. Her things were changed now; it was too bad!
Only the week before, there were two handkerchiefs which hadn't her
mark on them. It was not to her taste to have clothes coming from no
one knew where. Besides that, she liked to have her own things.

"And the sheets?" she resumed. "They're lost, aren't they? Well!
Woman, you must see about them, for I insist upon having them
to-morrow morning, do you hear?"

There was a silence which particularly bothered Gervaise when she
noticed that the door to Goujet's room was open. If he was in there,
it was most annoying that he should hear these just criticisms. She
made no reply, meekly bowing her head, and placing the laundry on the
bed as quickly as possible.

Matters became worse when Madame Goujet began to look over the things,
one by one. She took hold of them and threw them down again saying:

"Ah! you don't get them up nearly so well as you used to do. One can't
compliment you every day now. Yes, you've taken to mucking your work--
doing it in a most slovenly way. Just look at this shirt-front, it's
scorched, there's the mark of the iron on the plaits; and the buttons
have all been torn off. I don't know how you manage it, but there's
never a button left on anything. Oh! now, here's a petticoat body
which I shall certainly not pay you for. Look there! The dirt's still
on it, you've simply smoothed it over. So now the things are not even
clean!"

She stopped whilst she counted the different articles. Then she
exclaimed:

"What! This is all you've brought? There are two pairs of stockings,
six towels, a table-cloth, and several dish-cloths short. You're
regularly trifling with me, it seems! I sent word that you were to
bring me everything, ironed or not. If your apprentice isn't here on
the hour with the rest of the things, we shall fall out, Madame
Coupeau, I warn you."

At this moment Goujet coughed in his room. Gervaise slightly started.
/Mon Dieu!/ How she was treated before him. And she remained standing
in the middle of the rooms, embarrassed and confused and waiting for
the dirty clothes; but after making up the account Madame Goujet had
quietly returned to her seat near the window, and resumed the mending
of a lace shawl.

"And the dirty things?" timidly inquired the laundress.

"No, thank you," replied the old woman, "there will be no laundry this
week."

Gervaise turned pale. She was no longer to have the washing. Then she
quite lost her head; she was obliged to sit down on a chair, for her
legs were giving way under her. She did not attempt to vindicate
herself. All that she would find to say was:

"Is Monsieur Goujet ill?"

Yes, he was not well. He had been obliged to come home instead of
returning to the forge, and he had gone to lie down on his bed to get
a rest. Madame Goujet talked gravely, wearing her black dress as usual
and her white face framed in her nun-like coif. The pay at the forge
had been cut again. It was now only seven francs a day because the
machines did so much of the work. This forced her to save money every
way she could. She would do her own washing from now on. It would
naturally have been very helpful if the Coupeaus had been able to
return her the money lent them by her son; but she was not going to
set the lawyers on them, as they were unable to pay. As she was
talking about the debt, Gervaise lowered her eyes in embarrassment.

"All the same," continued the lace-maker, "by pinching yourselves a
little you could manage to pay it off. For really now, you live very
well; and spend a great deal, I'm sure. If you were only to pay off
ten francs a month--"

She was interrupted by the sound of Goujet's voice as he called:

"Mamma! Mamma!"

And when she returned to her seat, which was almost immediately, she
changed the conversation. The blacksmith had doubtless begged her not
to ask Gervaise for money; but in spite of herself she again spoke of
the debt at the expiration of five minutes. Oh! She had foreseen long
ago what was now happening. Coupeau was drinking all that the laundry
business brought in and dragging his wife down with him. Her son would
never have loaned the money if he had only listened to her. By now he
would have been married, instead of miserably sad with only
unhappiness to look forward to for the rest of his life. She grew
quite stern and angry, even accusing Gervaise of having schemed with
Coupeau to take advantage of her foolish son. Yes, some women were
able to play the hypocrite for years, but eventually the truth came
out.

"Mamma! Mamma!" again called Goujet, but louder this time.

She rose from her seat and when she returned she said, as she resumed
her lace mending:

"Go in, he wishes to see you."

Gervaise, all in a tremble left the door open. This scene filled her
with emotion because it was like an avowal of their affection before
Madame Goujet. She again beheld the quiet little chamber, with its
narrow iron bedstead, and papered all over with pictures, the whole
looking like the room of some girl of fifteen. Goujet's big body was
stretched on the bed. Mother Coupeau's disclosures and the things his
mother had been saying seemed to have knocked all the life out of his
limbs. His eyes were red and swollen, his beautiful yellow beard was
still wet. In the first moment of rage he must have punched away at
his pillow with his terrible fists, for the ticking was split and the
feathers were coming out.

"Listen, mamma's wrong," said he to the laundress in a voice that was
scarcely audible. "You owe me nothing. I won't have it mentioned
again."

He had raised himself up and was looking at her. Big tears at once
filled his eyes.

"Do you suffer, Monsieur Goujet?" murmured she. "What is the matter
with you? Tell me!"

"Nothing, thanks. I tired myself with too much work yesterday. I will
rest a bit."

Then, his heart breaking, he could not restrain himself and burst out:

"/Mon Dieu!/ Ah! /Mon Dieu!/ It was never to be--never. You swore it.
And now it is--it is! Ah, it pains me too much, leave me!"

And with his hand he gently and imploringly motioned to her to go. She
did not draw nearer to the bed. She went off as he requested her to,
feeling stupid, unable to say anything to soothe him. When in the
other room she took up her basket; but she did not go home. She stood
there trying to find something to say. Madame Goujet continued her
mending without raising her head. It was she who at length said:

"Well! Good-night; send me back my things and we will settle up
afterwards."

"Yes, it will be best so--good-night," stammered Gervaise.

She took a last look around the neatly arranged room and thought as
she shut the door that she seemed to be leaving some part of her
better self behind. She plodded blindly back to the laundry, scarcely
knowing where she was going.

When Gervaise arrived, she found mother Coupeau out of her bed,
sitting on a chair by the stove. Gervaise was too tired to scold her.
Her bones ached as though she had been beaten and she was thinking
that her life was becoming too hard to bear. Surely a quick death was
the only escape from the pain in her heart.

After this, Gervaise became indifferent to everything. With a vague
gesture of her hand she would send everybody about their business. At
each fresh worry she buried herself deeper in her only pleasure, which
was to have her three meals a day. The shop might have collapsed. So
long as she was not beneath it, she would have gone off willingly
without a chemise to her back. And the little shop was collapsing, not
suddenly, but little by little, morning and evening. One by one the
customers got angry, and sent their washing elsewhere. Monsieur
Madinier, Mademoiselle Remanjou, the Boches themselves had returned to
Madame Fauconnier, where they could count on great punctuality. One
ends by getting tired of asking for a pair of stockings for three
weeks straight, and of putting on shirts with grease stains dating
from the previous Sunday. Gervaise, without losing a bite, wished them
a pleasant journey, and spoke her mind about them, saying that she was
precious glad she would no longer have to poke her nose into their
filth. The entire neighborhood could quit her; that would relieve her
of the piles of stinking junk and give her less work to do.

Now her only customers were those who didn't pay regularly, the
street-walkers, and women like Madame Gaudron, whose laundry smelled
so bad that not one of the laundresses on the Rue Neuve would take it.
She had to let Madame Putois go, leaving only her apprentice, squint-
eyed Augustine, who seemed to grow more stupid as time passed.
Frequently there was not even enough work for the two of them and they
sat on stools all afternoon doing nothing.

Whilst idleness and poverty entered, dirtiness naturally entered also.
One would never have recognised that beautiful blue shop, the color of
heaven, which had once been Gervaise's pride. Its window-frames and
panes, which were never washed, were covered from top to bottom with
the splashes of the passing vehicles. On the brass rods in the windows
were displayed three grey rags left by customers who had died in the
hospital. And inside it was more pitiable still; the dampness of the
clothes hung up at the ceiling to dry had loosed all the wallpaper;
the Pompadour chintz hung in strips like cobwebs covered with dust;
the big stove, broken and in holes from the rough use of the poker,
looked in its corner like the stock in trade of a dealer in old iron;
the work-table appeared as though it had been used by a regiment,
covered as it was with wine and coffee stains, sticky with jam, greasy
from spilled gravy.

Gervaise was so at ease among it all that she never even noticed the
shop was getting filthy. She became used to it all, just as she got
used to wearing torn skirts and no longer washing herself carefully.
The disorder was like a warm nest.

Her own ease was her sole consideration; she did not care a pin for
anything else. The debts, though still increasing, no longer troubled
her. Her honesty gradually deserted her; whether she would be able to
pay or not was altogether uncertain, and she preferred not to think
about it. When her credit was stopped at one shop, she would open an
account at some other shop close by. She was in debt all over the
neighborhood, she owed money every few yards. To take merely the Rue
de la Goutte-d'Or, she no longer dared pass in front of the grocer's,
nor the charcoal-dealer's, nor the greengrocer's; and this obliged
her, whenever she required to be at the wash-house, to go round by the
Rue des Poissonniers, which was quite ten minutes out of her way. The
tradespeople came and treated her as a swindler. One evening the
dealer from whom she had purchased Lantier's furniture made a scene in
the street. Scenes like this upset her at the time, but were soon
forgotten and never spoiled her appetite. What a nerve to bother her
like that when she had no money to pay. They were all robbers anyway
and it served them right to have to wait. Well, she'd have to go
bankrupt, but she didn't intend to fret about it now.

Meanwhile mother Coupeau had recovered. For another year the household
jogged along. During the summer months there was naturally a little
more work--the white petticoats and the cambric dresses of the street-
walkers of the exterior Boulevard. The catastrophe was slowly
approaching; the home sank deeper into the mire every week; there were
ups and downs, however--days when one had to rub one's stomach before
the empty cupboard, and others when one ate veal enough to make one
burst. Mother Coupeau was for ever being seen in the street, hiding
bundles under her apron, and strolling in the direction of the pawn-
place in the Rue Polonceau. She strutted along with the air of a
devotee going to mass; for she did not dislike these errands; haggling
about money amused her; this crying up of her wares like a second-hand
dealer tickled the old woman's fancy for driving hard bargains. The
clerks knew her well and called her "Mamma Four Francs," because she
always demanded four francs when they offered three, on bundles no
bigger than two sous' worth of butter.

At the start, Gervaise took advantage of good weeks to get things back
from the pawn-shops, only to put them back again the next week. Later
she let things go altogether, selling her pawn tickets for cash.

One thing alone gave Gervaise a pang--it was having to pawn her clock
to pay an acceptance for twenty francs to a bailiff who came to seize
her goods. Until then, she had sworn rather to die of hunger than to
part with her clock. When mother Coupeau carried it away in a little
bonnet-box, she sunk on to a chair, without a particle of strength
left in her arms, her eyes full of tears, as though a fortune was
being torn from her. But when mother Coupeau reappeared with twenty-
five francs, the unexpected loan, the five francs profit consoled her;
she at once sent the old woman out again for four sous' worth of
brandy in a glass, just to toast the five-franc piece.

The two of them would often have a drop together, when they were on
good terms with each other. Mother Coupeau was very successful at
bringing back a full glass hidden in her apron pocket without spilling
a drop. Well, the neighbors didn't need to know, did they. But the
neighbors knew perfectly well. This turned the neighborhood even more
against Gervaise. She was devouring everything; a few more mouthfuls
and the place would be swept clean.

In the midst of this general demolishment, Coupeau continued to
prosper. The confounded tippler was as well as well could be. The sour
wine and the "vitriol" positively fattened him. He ate a great deal,
and laughed at that stick Lorilleux, who accused drink of killing
people, and answered him by slapping himself on the stomach, the skin
of which was so stretched by the fat that it resembled the skin of a
drum. He would play him a tune on it, the glutton's vespers, with
rolls and beats loud enough to have made a quack's fortune. Lorilleux,
annoyed at not having any fat himself, said that it was soft and
unhealthy. Coupeau ignored him and went on drinking more and more,
saying it was for his health's sake.

His hair was beginning to turn grey and his face to take on the
drunkard's hue of purplish wine. He continued to act like a
mischievous child. Well, it wasn't his concern if there was nothing
about the place to eat. When he went for weeks without work he became
even more difficult.

Still, he was always giving Lantier friendly slaps on the back. People
swore he had no suspicion at all. Surely something terrible would
happen if he ever found out. Madame Lerat shook her head at this. His
sister said she had known of husbands who didn't mind at all.

Lantier wasn't wasting away either. He took great care of himself,
measuring his stomach by the waist-board of his trousers, with the
constant dread of having to loosen the buckle or draw it tighter; for
he considered himself just right, and out of coquetry neither desired
to grow fatter nor thinner. That made him hard to please in the matter
of food, for he regarded every dish from the point of view of keeping
his waist as it was. Even when there was not a sou in the house, he
required eggs, cutlets, light and nourishing things. Since he was
sharing the lady of the house, he considered himself to have a half
interest in everything and would pocket any franc pieces he saw lying
about. He kept Gervaise running here and there and seemed more at home
than Coupeau. Nana was his favorite because he adored pretty little
girls, but he paid less and less attention to Etienne, since boys,
according to him, ought to know how to take care of themselves. If
anyone came to see Coupeau while he was out, Lantier, in shirt sleeves
and slippers, would come out of the back room with the bored
expression of a husband who has been disturbed, saying he would answer
for Coupeau as it was all the same.

Between these two gentlemen, Gervaise had nothing to laugh about. She
had nothing to complain of as regards her health, thank goodness! She
was growing too fat. But two men to coddle was often more than she
could manage. Ah! /Mon Dieu!/ one husband is already too much for a
woman! The worst was that they got on very well together, the rogues.
They never quarreled; they would chuckle in each other's faces, as
they sat of an evening after dinner, their elbows on the table; they
would rub up against one another all the live-long day, like cats
which seek and cultivate their pleasure. The days when they came home
in a rage, it was on her that they vented it. Go it! hammer away at
the animal! She had a good back; it made them all the better friends
when they yelled together. And it never did for her to give them tit-
for-tat. In the beginning, whenever one of them yelled at her, she
would appeal to the other, but this seldom worked. Coupeau had a foul
mouth and called her horrible things. Lantier chose his insults
carefully, but they often hurt her even more.

But one can get used to anything. Soon their nasty remarks and all the
wrongs done her by these two men slid off her smooth skin like water
off a duck's back. It was even easier to have them angry, because when
they were in good moods they bothered her too much, never giving her
time to get a bonnet ironed.

Yes, Coupeau and Lantier were wearing her out. The zinc-worker, sure
enough, lacked education; but the hatter had too much, or at least he
had education in the same way that dirty people have a white shirt,
with uncleanliness underneath it. One night, she dreamt that she was
on the edge of a wall; Coupeau was knocking her into it with a blow of
his fist, whilst Lantier was tickling her in the ribs to make her fall
quicker. Well! That resembled her life. It was no surprise if she was
becoming slipshod. The neighbors weren't fair in blaming her for the
frightful habits she had fallen into. Sometimes a cold shiver ran
through her, but things could have been worse, so she tried to make
the best of it. Once she had seen a play in which the wife detested
her husband and poisoned him for the sake of her lover. Wasn't it more
sensible for the three of them to live together in peace? In spite of
her debts and poverty she thought she was quite happy and could live
in peace if only Coupeau and Lantier would stop yelling at her so
much.

Towards the autumn, unfortunately, things became worse. Lantier
pretended he was getting thinner, and pulled a longer face over the
matter every day. He grumbled at everything, sniffed at the dishes of
potatoes--a mess he could not eat, he would say, without having the
colic. The least jangling now turned to quarrels, in which they
accused one another of being the cause of all their troubles, and it
was a devil of a job to restore harmony before they all retired for
the night.

Lantier sensed a crisis coming and it exasperated him to realise that
this place was already so thoroughly cleaned out that he could see the
day coming when he'd have to take his hat and seek elsewhere for his
bed and board. He had become accustomed to this little paradise where
he was nicely treated by everybody. He should have blamed himself for
eating himself out of house and home, but instead he blamed the
Coupeaus for letting themselves be ruined in less than two years. He
thought Gervaise was too extravagant. What was going to happen to them
now?

One evening in December they had no dinner at all. There was not a
radish left. Lantier, who was very glum, went out early, wandering
about in search of some other den where the smell of the kitchen would
bring a smile to one's face. He would now remain for hours beside the
stove wrapt in thought. Then, suddenly, he began to evince a great
friendship for the Poissons. He no longer teased the policeman and
even went so far as to concede that the Emperor might not be such a
bad fellow after all. He seemed to especially admire Virginie. No
doubt he was hoping to board with them. Virginie having acquainted him
with her desire to set up in some sort of business, he agreed with
everything she said, and declared that her idea was a most brilliant
one. She was just the person for trade--tall, engaging and active. Oh!
she would make as much as she liked. The capital had been available
for some time, thanks to an inheritance from an aunt. Lantier told her
of all the shopkeepers who were making fortunes. The time was right
for it; you could sell anything these days. Virginie, however,
hesitated; she was looking for a shop that was to be let, she did not
wish to leave the neighborhood. Then Lantier would take her into
corners and converse with her in an undertone for ten minutes at a
time. He seemed to be urging her to do something in spite of herself;
and she no longer said "no," but appeared to authorize him to act. It
was as a secret between them, with winks and words rapidly exchanged,
some mysterious understanding which betrayed itself even in their
handshakings.

From this moment the hatter would covertly watch the Coupeaus whilst
eating their dry bread, and becoming very talkative again, would
deafen them with his continual jeremiads. All day long Gervaise moved
in the midst of that poverty which he so obligingly spread out. /Mon
Dieu!/ he wasn't thinking of himself; he would go on starving with his
friends as long as they liked. But look at it with common sense. They
owed at least five hundred francs in the neighborhood. Besides which,
they were two quarters rent behind with the rent, which meant another
two hundred and fifty francs; the landlord, Monsieur Marescot, even
spoke of having them evicted if they did not pay him by the first of
January. Finally the pawn-place had absorbed everything, one could not
have got together three francs' worth of odds and ends, the clearance
had been so complete; the nails remained in the walls and that was all
and perhaps there were two pounds of them at three sous the pound.
Gervaise, thoroughly entangled in it all, her nerves quite upset by
this calculation, would fly into a passion and bang her fists down
upon the table or else she would end by bursting into tears like a
fool. One night she exclaimed:

"I'll be off to-morrow! I prefer to put the key under the door and to
sleep on the pavement rather than continue to live in such frights."

"It would be wiser," said Lantier slyly, "to get rid of the lease if
you could find someone to take it. When you are both decided to give
up the shop--"

She interrupted him more violently:

"At once, at once! Ah! it'll be a good riddance!"

Then the hatter became very practical. On giving up the lease one
would no doubt get the new tenant to be responsible for the two
overdue quarters. And he ventured to mention the Poissons, he reminded
them that Virginie was looking for a shop; theirs would perhaps suit
her. He remembered that he had heard her say she longed for one just
like it. But when Virginie's name was mentioned the laundress suddenly
regained her composure. We'll see how things go along. When you're
angry you always talk of quitting, but it isn't so easy when you just
stop to think about it.

During the following days it was in vain that Lantier harped upon the
subject. Gervaise replied that she had seen herself worse off and had
pulled through. How would she be better off when she no longer had her
shop? That would not put bread into their mouths. She would, on the
contrary, engage some fresh workwomen and work up a fresh connection.

Lantier made the mistake of mentioning Virginie again. This stirred
Gervaise into furious obstinacy. No! Never! She had always had her
suspicions of what was in Virginie's heart. Virginie only wanted to
humiliate her. She would rather turn it over to the first woman to
come in from the street than to that hypocrite who had been waiting
for years to see her fail. Yes, Virginie still had in mind that fight
in the wash-house. Well, she'd be wiser to forget about it, unless she
wanted another one now.

In the face of this flow of angry retorts, Lantier began by attacking
Gervaise. He called her stupid and stuck-up. He even went so far as to
abuse Coupeau, accusing him of not knowing how to make his wife
respect his friend. Then, realising that passion would compromise
everything, he swore that he would never again interest himself in the
affairs of other people, for one always got more kicks than thanks;
and indeed he appeared to have given up all idea of talking them into
parting with the lease, but he was really watching for a favorable
opportunity of broaching the subject again and of bringing the
laundress round to his views.

January had now arrived; the weather was wretched, both damp and cold.
Mother Coupeau, who had coughed and choked all through December, was
obliged to take to her bed after Twelfth-night. It was her annuity,
which she expected every winter. This winter though, those around her
said she'd never come out of her bedroom except feet first. Indeed,
her gaspings sounded like a death rattle. She was still fat, but one
eye was blind and one side of her face was twisted. The doctor made
one call and didn't return again. They kept giving her tisanes and
going to check on her every hour. She could no longer speak because
her breathing was so difficult.

One Monday evening, Coupeau came home totally drunk. Ever since his
mother was in danger, he had lived in a continual state of deep
emotion. When he was in bed, snoring soundly, Gervaise walked about
the place for a while. She was in the habit of watching over mother
Coupeau during a part of the night. Nana had showed herself very
brave, always sleeping beside the old woman, and saying that if she
heard her dying, she would wake everyone. Since the invalid seemed to
be sleeping peacefully this night, Gervaise finally yielded to the
appeals of Lantier to come into his room for a little rest. They only
kept a candle alight, standing on the ground behind the wardrobe. But
towards three o'clock Gervaise abruptly jumped out of bed, shivering
and oppressed with anguish. She thought she had felt a cold breath
pass over her body. The morsel of candle had burnt out; she tied on
her petticoats in the dark, all bewildered, and with feverish hands.
It was not till she got into the little room, after knocking up
against the furniture, that she was able to light a small lamp. In the
midst of the oppressive silence of night, the zinc-worker's snores
alone sounded as two grave notes. Nana, stretched on her back, was
breathing gently between her pouting lips. And Gervaise, holding down
the lamp which caused big shadows to dance about the room, cast the
light on mother Coupeau's face, and beheld it all white, the head
lying on the shoulder, the eyes wide open. Mother Coupeau was dead.

Gently, without uttering a cry, icy cold yet prudent, the laundress
returned to Lantier's room. He had gone to sleep again. She bent over
him and murmured:

"Listen, it's all over, she's dead."

Heavy with sleep, only half awake, he grunted at first:

"Leave me alone, get into bed. We can't do her any good if she's
dead."

Then he raised himself on his elbow and asked:

"What's the time?"

"Three o'clock."

"Only three o'clock! Get into bed quick. You'll catch cold. When it's
daylight, we'll see what's to be done."

But she did not listen to him, she dressed herself completely.
Bundling himself in the blankets, Lantier muttered about how stubborn
women were. What was the hurry to announce a death in the house? He
was irritated at having his sleep spoiled by such gloomy matters.

Meanwhile, Gervaise had moved her things back into her own room. Then
she felt free to sit down and cry, no longer fearful of being caught
in Lantier's room. She had been fond of mother Coupeau and felt a deep
sorrow at her loss. She sat, crying by herself, her sobs loud in the
silence, but Coupeau never stirred. She had spoken to him and even
shaken him and finally decided to let him sleep. He would be more of a
nuisance if he woke up.

On returning to the body, she found Nana sitting up in bed rubbing her
eyes. The child understood, and with her vicious urchin's curiosity,
stretched out her neck to get a better view of her grandmother; she
said nothing but she trembled slightly, surprised and satisfied in the
presence of this death which she had been promising herself for two
days past, like some nasty thing hidden away and forbidden to
children; and her young cat-like eyes dilated before that white face
all emaciated at the last gasp by the passion of life, she felt that
tingling in her back which she felt behind the glass door when she
crept there to spy on what was no concern of chits like her.

"Come, get up," said her mother in a low voice. "You can't remain
here."

She regretfully slid out of bed, turning her head round and not taking
her eyes off the corpse. Gervaise was much worried about her, not
knowing where to put her till day-time. She was about to tell her to
dress herself, when Lantier, in his trousers and slippers, rejoined
her. He could not get to sleep again, and was rather ashamed of his
behavior. Then everything was arranged.

"She can sleep in my bed," murmured he. "She'll have plenty of room."

Nana looked at her mother and Lantier with her big, clear eyes and put
on her stupid air, the same as on New Year's day when anyone made her
a present of a box of chocolate candy. And there was certainly no need
for them to hurry her. She trotted off in her night-gown, her bare
feet scarcely touching the tiled floor; she glided like a snake into
the bed, which was still quite warm, and she lay stretched out and
buried in it, her slim body scarcely raising the counterpane. Each
time her mother entered the room she beheld her with her eyes
sparkling in her motionless face--not sleeping, not moving, very red
with excitement, and appearing to reflect on her own affairs.

Lantier assisted Gervaise in dressing mother Coupeau--and it was not
an easy matter, for the body was heavy. One would never have thought
that that old woman was so fat and so white. They put on her
stockings, a white petticoat, a short linen jacket and a white cap--in
short, the best of her linen. Coupeau continued snoring, a high note
and a low one, the one sharp, the other flat. One could almost have
imagined it to be church music accompanying the Good Friday
ceremonies. When the corpse was dressed and properly laid out on the
bed, Lantier poured himself out a glass of wine, for he felt quite
upset. Gervaise searched the chest of drawers to find a little brass
crucifix which she had brought from Plassans, but she recollected that
mother Coupeau had, in all probability, sold it herself. They had
lighted the stove, and they passed the rest of the night half asleep
on chairs, finishing the bottle of wine that had been opened, worried
and sulking, as though it was their own fault.

Towards seven o'clock, before daylight, Coupeau at length awoke. When
he learnt his loss he at first stood still with dry eyes, stuttering
and vaguely thinking that they were playing him some joke. Then he
threw himself on the ground and went and knelt beside the corpse. His
kissed it and wept like a child, with such a copious flow of tears
that he quite wetted the sheet with wiping his cheeks. Gervaise had
recommenced sobbing, deeply affected by her husband's grief, and the
best of friends with him again. Yes, he was better at heart than she
thought he was. Coupeau's despair mingled with a violent pain in his
head. He passed his fingers through his hair. His mouth was dry, like
on the morrow of a booze, and he was still a little drunk in spite of
his ten hours of sleep. And, clenching his fist, he complained aloud.
/Mon Dieu!/ she was gone now, his poor mother, whom he loved so much!
Ah! what a headache he had; it would settle him! It was like a wig of
fire! And now they were tearing out his heart! No, it was not just of
fate thus to set itself against one man!

"Come, cheer up, old fellow," said Lantier, raising him from the
ground; "you must pull yourself together."

He poured him out a glass of wine, but Coupeau refused to drink.

"What's the matter with me? I've got copper in my throat. It's mamma.
When I saw her I got a taste of copper in my mouth. Mamma! /Mon Dieu!/
mamma, mamma!"

And he recommenced crying like a child. Then he drank the glass of
wine, hoping to put out the flame searing his breast. Lantier soon
left, using the excuse of informing the family and filing the
necessary declaration at the town hall. Really though, he felt the
need of fresh air, and so he took his time, smoking cigarettes and
enjoying the morning air. When he left Madame Lerat's house, he went
into a dairy place on Les Batignolles for a cup of hot coffee and
remained there an hour, thinking things over.

Towards nine o'clock the family were all united in the shop, the
shutters of which were kept up. Lorilleux did not cry. Moreover he had
some pressing work to attend to, and he returned almost directly to
his room, after having stalked about with a face put on for the
occasion. Madame Lorilleux and Madame Lerat embraced the Coupeaus and
wiped their eyes, from which a few tears were falling. But Madame
Lorilleux, after giving a hasty glance round the death chamber,
suddenly raised her voice to say that it was unheard of, that one
never left a lighted lamp beside a corpse; there should be a candle,
and Nana was sent to purchase a packet of tall ones. Ah, well! It made
one long to die at Clump-clump's, she laid one out in such a fine
fashion! What a fool, not even to know what to do with a corpse! Had
she then never buried anyone in her life? Madame Lerat had to go to
the neighbors and borrow a crucifix; she brought one back which was
too big, a cross of black wood with a Christ in painted cardboard
fastened to it, which covered the whole of mother Coupeau's chest, and
seemed to crush her under its weight. Then they tried to obtain some
holy water, but no one had any, and it was again Nana who was sent to
the church to bring some back in a bottle. In practically no time the
tiny room presented quite another appearance; on a little table a
candle was burning beside a glass full of holy water into which a
sprig of boxwood was dipped. Now, if anyone came, it would at least
look decent. And they arranged the chairs in a circle in the shop for
receiving people.

Lantier only returned at eleven o'clock. He had been to the
undertaker's for information.

"The coffin is twelve francs," said he. "If you desire a mass, it will
be ten francs more. Then there's the hearse, which is charged for
according to the ornaments."

"Oh! it's quite unnecessary to be fancy," murmured Madame Lorilleux,
raising her head in a surprised and anxious manner. "We can't bring
mamma to life again, can we? One must do according to one's means."

"Of course, that's just what I think," resumed the hatter. "I merely
asked the prices to guide you. Tell me what you desire; and after
lunch I will give the orders."

They were talking in lowered voices. Only a dim light came into the
room through the cracks in the shutters. The door to the little room
stood half open, and from it came the deep silence of death.
Children's laughter echoed in the courtyard. Suddenly they heard the
voice of Nana, who had escaped from the Boches to whom she had been
sent. She was giving commands in her shrill voice and the children
were singing a song about a donkey.

Gervaise waited until it was quiet to say:

"We're not rich certainly; but all the same we wish to act decently.
If mother Coupeau has left us nothing, it's no reason for pitching her
into the ground like a dog. No; we must have a mass, and a hearse with
a few ornaments."

"And who will pay for them?" violently inquired Madame Lorilleux. "Not
we, who lost some money last week; and you either, as you're stumped.
Ah! you ought, however, to see where it has led you, this trying to
impress people!"

Coupeau, when consulted, mumbled something with a gesture of profound
indifference, and then fell asleep again on his chair. Madame Lerat
said that she would pay her share. She was of Gervaise's opinion, they
should do things decently. Then the two of them fell to making
calculations on a piece of paper: in all, it would amount to about
ninety francs, because they decided, after a long discussion, to have
a hearse ornamented with a narrow scallop.

"We're three," concluded the laundress. "We'll give thirty francs
each. It won't ruin us."

But Madame Lorilleux broke out in a fury.

"Well! I refuse, yes, I refuse! It's not for the thirty francs. I'd
give a hundred thousand, if I had them, and if it would bring mamma to
life again. Only, I don't like vain people. You've got a shop, you
only dream of showing off before the neighborhood. We don't fall in
with it, we don't. We don't try to make ourselves out what we are not.
Oh! you can manage it to please yourself. Put plumes on the hearse if
it amuses you."

"No one asks you for anything," Gervaise ended by answering. "Even
though I should have to sell myself, I'll not have anything to
reproach myself with. I've fed mother Coupeau without your help, and I
can certainly bury her without your help also. I already once before
gave you a bit of my mind; I pick up stray cats, I'm not likely to
leave your mother in the mire."

Then Madame Lorilleux burst into tears and Lantier had to prevent her
from leaving. The argument became so noisy that Madame Lerat felt she
had to go quietly into the little room and glance tearfully at her
dead mother, as though fearing to find her awake and listening. Just
at this moment the girls playing in the courtyard, led by Nana, began
singing again.

"/Mon Dieu!/ how those children grate on one's nerves with their
singing!" said Gervaise, all upset and on the point of sobbing with
impatience and sadness. Turning to the hatter, she said:

"Do please make them leave off, and send Nana back to the concierge's
with a kick."

Madame Lerat and Madame Lorilleux went away to eat lunch, promising to
return. The Coupeaus sat down to eat a bite without much appetite,
feeling hesitant about even raising a fork. After lunch Lantier went
to the undertaker's again with the ninety francs. Thirty had come from
Madame Lerat and Gervaise had run, with her hair all loose, to borrow
sixty francs from Goujet.

Several of the neighbors called in the afternoon, mainly out of
curiosity. They went into the little room to make the sign of the
cross and sprinkle some holy water with the boxwood sprig. Then they
sat in the shop and talked endlessly about the departed. Mademoiselle
Remanjou had noticed that her right eye was still open. Madame Gaudron
maintained that she had a fine complexion for her age. Madame
Fauconnier kept repeating that she had seen her having coffee only
three days earlier.

Towards evening the Coupeaus were beginning to have had enough of it.
It was too great an affliction for a family to have to keep a corpse
so long a time. The government ought to have made a new law on the
subject. All through another evening, another night, and another
morning--no! it would never come to an end. When one no longer weeps,
grief turns to irritation; is it not so? One would end by misbehaving
oneself. Mother Coupeau, dumb and stiff in the depths of the narrow
chamber, was spreading more and more over the lodging and becoming
heavy enough to crush the people in it. And the family, in spite of
itself, gradually fell into the ordinary mode of life, and lost some
portion of its respect.

"You must have a mouthful with us," said Gervaise to Madame Lerat and
Madame Lorilleux, when they returned. "We're too sad; we must keep
together."

They laid the cloth on the work-table. Each one, on seeing the plates,
thought of the feastings they had had on it. Lantier had returned.
Lorilleux came down. A pastry-cook had just brought a meat pie, for
the laundress was too upset to attend to any cooking. As they were
taking their seats, Boche came to say that Monsieur Marescot asked to
be admitted, and the landlord appeared, looking very grave, and
wearing a broad decoration on his frock-coat. He bowed in silence and
went straight to the little room, where he knelt down. All the family,
leaving the table, stood up, greatly impressed. Monsieur Marescot,
having finished his devotions, passed into the shop and said to the
Coupeaus:

"I have come for the two quarters' rent that's overdue. Are you
prepared to pay?"

"No, sir, not quite," stammered Gervaise, greatly put out at hearing
this mentioned before the Lorilleuxs. "You see, with the misfortune
which has fallen upon us--"

"No doubt, but everyone has their troubles," resumed the landlord,
spreading out his immense fingers, which indicated the former workman.
"I am very sorry, but I cannot wait any longer. If I am not paid by
the morning after to-morrow, I shall be obliged to have you put out."

Gervaise, struck dumb, imploringly clasped her hands, her eyes full of
tears. With an energetic shake of his big bony head, he gave her to
understand that supplications were useless. Besides, the respect due
to the dead forbade all discussion. He discreetly retired, walking
backwards.

"A thousand pardons for having disturbed you," murmured he. "The
morning after to-morrow; do not forget."

And as on withdrawing he again passed before the little room, he
saluted the corpse a last time through the wide open door by devoutly
bending his knee.

They began eating and gobbled the food down very quickly, so as not to
seem to be enjoying it, only slowing down when they reached the
dessert. Occasionally Gervaise or one of the sisters would get up,
still holding her napkin, to look into the small room. They made
plenty of strong coffee to keep them awake through the night. The
Poissons arrived about eight and were invited for coffee.

Then Lantier, who had been watching Gervaise's face, seemed to seize
an opportunity that he had been waiting for ever since the morning. In
speaking of the indecency of landlords who entered houses of mourning
to demand their money, he said:

"He's a Jesuit, the beast, with his air of officiating at a mass! But
in your place, I'd just chuck up the shop altogether."

Gervaise, quite worn out and feeling weak and nervous, gave way and
replied:

"Yes, I shall certainly not wait for the bailiffs. Ah! it's more than
I can bear--more than I can bear."

The Lorilleuxs, delighted at the idea that Clump-clump would no longer
have a shop, approved the plan immensely. One could hardly conceive
the great cost a shop was. If she only earned three francs working for
others she at least had no expenses; she did not risk losing large
sums of money. They repeated this argument to Coupeau, urging him on;
he drank a great deal and remained in a continuous fit of sensibility,
weeping all day by himself in his plate. As the laundress seemed to be
allowing herself to be convinced, Lantier looked at the Poissons and
winked. And tall Virginie intervened, making herself most amiable.

"You know, we might arrange the matter between us. I would relieve you
of the rest of the lease and settle your matter with the landlord. In
short, you would not be worried nearly so much."

"No thanks," declared Gervaise, shaking herself as though she felt a
shudder pass over her. "I'll work; I've got my two arms, thank heaven!
to help me out of my difficulties."

"We can talk about it some other time," the hatter hastened to put in.
"It's scarcely the thing to do so this evening. Some other time--in
the morning for instance."

At this moment, Madame Lerat, who had gone into the little room,
uttered a faint cry. She had had a fright because she had found the
candle burnt out. They all busied themselves in lighting another; they
shook their heads, saying that it was not a good sign when the light
went out beside a corpse.

The wake commenced. Coupeau had gone to lie down, not to sleep, said
he, but to think; and five minutes afterwards he was snoring. When
they sent Nana off to sleep at the Boches' she cried; she had been
looking forward ever since the morning to being nice and warm in her
good friend Lantier's big bed. The Poissons stayed till midnight. Some
hot wine had been made in a salad-bowl because the coffee affected the
ladies' nerves too much. The conversation became tenderly effusive.
Virginie talked of the country: she would like to be buried at the
corner of a wood with wild flowers on her grave. Madame Lerat had
already put by in her wardrobe the sheet for her shroud, and she kept
it perfumed with a bunch of lavender; she wished always to have a nice
smell under her nose when she would be eating the dandelions by the
roots. Then, with no sort of transition, the policeman related that he
had arrested a fine girl that morning who had been stealing from a
pork-butcher's shop; on undressing her at the commissary of police's
they had found ten sausages hanging round her body. And Madame
Lorilleux having remarked, with a look of disgust, that she would not
eat any of those sausages, the party burst into a gentle laugh. The
wake became livelier, though not ceasing to preserve appearances.

But just as they were finishing the hot wine a peculiar noise, a dull
trickling sound, issued from the little room. All raised their heads
and looked at each other.

"It's nothing," said Lantier quietly, lowering his voice. "She's
emptying."

The explanation caused the others to nod their heads in a reassured
way, and they replaced their glasses on the table.

When the Poissons left for home, Lantier left also, saying he would
sleep with a friend and leave his bed for the ladies in case they
wanted to take turns napping. Lorilleux went upstairs to bed. Gervaise
and the two sisters arranged themselves by the stove where they
huddled together close to the warmth, talking quietly. Coupeau was
still snoring.

Madame Lorilleux was complaining that she didn't have a black dress
and asked Gervaise about the black skirt they had given mother Coupeau
on her saint's day. Gervaise went to look for it. Madame Lorilleux
then wanted some of the old linen and mentioned the bed, the wardrobe,
and the two chairs as she looked around for other odds and ends.
Madame Lerat had to serve as peace maker when a quarrel nearly broke
out. She pointed out that as the Coupeaus had cared for their mother,
they deserved to keep the few things she had left. Soon they were all
dozing around the stove.

The night seemed terribly long to them. Now and again they shook
themselves, drank some coffee and stretched their necks in the
direction of the little room, where the candle, which was not to be
snuffed, was burning with a dull red flame, flickering the more
because of the black soot on the wick. Towards morning, they shivered,
in spite of the great heat of the stove. Anguish, and the fatigue of
having talked too much was stifling them, whilst their mouths were
parched, and their eyes ached. Madame Lerat threw herself on Lantier's
bed, and snored as loud as a man; whilst the other two, their heads
falling forward, and almost touching their knees, slept before the
fire. At daybreak, a shudder awoke them. Mother Coupeau's candle had
again gone out; and as, in the obscurity, the dull trickling sound
recommenced, Madame Lorilleux gave the explanation of it anew in a
loud voice, so as to reassure herself:

"She's emptying," repeated she, lighting another candle.

The funeral was to take place at half-past ten. A nice morning to add
to the night and the day before! Gervaise, though without a sou, said
she would have given a hundred francs to anybody who would have come
and taken mother Coupeau away three hours sooner. No, one may love
people, but they are too great a weight when they are dead; and the
more one has loved them, the sooner one would like to be rid of their
bodies.

The morning of a funeral is, fortunately, full of diversions. One has
all sorts of preparations to make. To begin with, they lunched. Then
it happened to be old Bazouge, the undertaker's helper, who lived on
the sixth floor, who brought the coffin and the sack of bran. He was
never sober, the worthy fellow. At eight o'clock that day, he was
still lively from the booze of the day before.

"This is for here, isn't it?" asked he.

And he laid down the coffin, which creaked like a new box. But as he
was throwing the sack of bran on one side, he stood with a look of
amazement in his eyes, his mouth opened wide, on beholding Gervaise
before him.

"Beg pardon, excuse me. I've made a mistake," stammered he. "I was
told it was for you."

He had already taken up the sack again, and the laundress was obliged
to call to him:

"Leave it alone, it's for here."

"Ah! /Mon Dieu!/ Now I understand!" resumed he, slapping his thigh.
"It's for the old lady."

Gervaise had turned quite pale. Old Bazouge had brought the coffin for
her. By way of apology, he tried to be gallant, and continued:

"I'm not to blame, am I? It was said yesterday that someone on the
ground floor had passed away. Then I thought--you know, in our
business, these things enter by one ear and go out by the other. All
the same, my compliments to you. As late as possible, eh? That's best,
though life isn't always amusing; ah! no, by no means."

As Gervaise listened to him, she draw back, afraid he would grab her
and take her away in the box. She remembered the time before, when he
had told her he knew of women who would thank him to come and get
them. Well, she wasn't ready yet. /Mon Dieu!/ The thought sent chills
down her spine. Her life may have been bitter, but she wasn't ready to
give it up yet. No, she would starve for years first.

"He's abominably drunk," murmured she, with an air of disgust mingled
with dread. "They at least oughtn't to send us tipplers. We pay dear
enough."

Then he became insolent, and jeered:

"See here, little woman, it's only put off until another time. I'm
entirely at your service, remember! You've only to make me a sign. I'm
the ladies' consoler. And don't spit on old Bazouge, because he's held
in his arms finer ones than you, who let themselves be tucked in
without a murmur, very pleased to continue their by-by in the dark."

"Hold your tongue, old Bazouge!" said Lorilleux severely, having
hastened to the spot on hearing the noise, "such jokes are highly
improper. If we complained about you, you would get the sack. Come, be
off, as you've no respect for principles."

Bazouge moved away, but one could hear him stuttering as he dragged
along the pavement:

"Well! What? Principles! There's no such thing as principles, there's
no such thing as principles--there's only common decency!"

At length ten o'clock struck. The hearse was late. There were already
several people in the shop, friends and neighbors--Monsieur Madinier,
My-Boots, Madame Gaudron, Mademoiselle Remanjou; and every minute, a
man's or a woman's head was thrust out of the gaping opening of the
door between the closed shutters, to see if that creeping hearse was
in sight. The family, all together in the back room, was shaking
hands. Short pauses occurred interrupted by rapid whisperings, a
tiresome and feverish waiting with sudden rushes of skirts--Madame
Lorilleux who had forgotten her handkerchief, or else Madame Lerat who
was trying to borrow a prayer-book. Everyone, on arriving, beheld the
open coffin in the centre of the little room before the bed; and in
spite of oneself, each stood covertly studying it, calculating that
plump mother Coupeau would never fit into it. They all looked at each
other with this thought in their eyes, though without communicating
it. But there was a slight pushing at the front door. Monsieur
Madinier, extending his arms, came and said in a low grave voice:

"Here they are!"

It was not the hearse though. Four helpers entered hastily in single
file, with their red faces, their hands all lumpy like persons in the
habit of moving heavy things, and their rusty black clothes worn and
frayed from constant rubbing against coffins. Old Bazouge walked
first, very drunk and very proper. As soon as he was at work he found
his equilibrium. They did not utter a word, but slightly bowed their
heads, already weighing mother Coupeau with a glance. And they did not
dawdle; the poor old woman was packed in, in the time one takes to
sneeze. A young fellow with a squint, the smallest of the men, poured
the bran into the coffin and spread it out. The tall and thin one
spread the winding sheet over the bran. Then, two at the feet and two
at the head, all four took hold of the body and lifted it. Mother
Coupeau was in the box, but it was a tight fit. She touched on every
side.

The undertaker's helpers were now standing up and waiting; the little
one with the squint took the coffin lid, by way of inviting the family
to bid their last farewell, whilst Bazouge had filled his mouth with
nails and was holding the hammer in readiness. Then Coupeau, his two
sisters and Gervaise threw themselves on their knees and kissed the
mamma who was going away, weeping bitterly, the hot tears falling on
and streaming down the stiff face now cold as ice. There was a
prolonged sound of sobbing. The lid was placed on, and old Bazouge
knocked the nails in with the style of a packer, two blows for each;
and they none of them could hear any longer their own weeping in that
din, which resembled the noise of furniture being repaired. It was
over. The time for starting had arrived.

"What a fuss to make at such a time!" said Madame Lorilleux to her
husband as she caught sight of the hearse before the door.

The hearse was creating quite a revolution in the neighborhood. The
tripe-seller called to the grocer's men, the little clockmaker came
out on to the pavement, the neighbors leant out of their windows; and
all these people talked about the scallop with its white cotton
fringe. Ah! the Coupeaus would have done better to have paid their
debts. But as the Lorilleuxs said, when one is proud it shows itself
everywhere and in spite of everything.

"It's shameful!" Gervaise was saying at the same moment, speaking of
the chainmaker and his wife. "To think that those skinflints have not
even brought a bunch of violets for their mother!"

The Lorilleuxs, true enough, had come empty-handed. Madame Lerat had
given a wreath of artificial flowers. And a wreath of immortelles and
a bouquet bought by the Coupeaus were also placed on the coffin. The
undertaker's helpers had to give a mighty heave to lift the coffin and
carry it to the hearse. It was some time before the procession was
formed. Coupeau and Lorilleux, in frock coats and with their hats in
their hands, were chief mourners. The first, in his emotion which two
glasses of white wine early in the morning had helped to sustain,
clung to his brother-in-law's arm, with no strength in his legs, and a
violent headache. Then followed the other men--Monsieur Madinier, very
grave and all in black; My-Boots, wearing a great-coat over his
blouse; Boche, whose yellow trousers produced the effect of a petard;
Lantier, Gaudron, Bibi-the-Smoker, Poisson and others. The ladies came
next--in the first row Madame Lorilleux, dragging the deceased's
skirt, which she had altered; Madame Lerat, hiding under a shawl her
hastily got-up mourning, a gown with lilac trimmings; and following
them, Virginie, Madame Gaudron, Madame Fauconnier, Mademoiselle
Remanjou and the rest. When the hearse started and slowly descended
the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, amidst signs of the cross and heads bared,
the four helpers took the lead, two in front, the two others on the
right and left. Gervaise had remained behind to close the shop. She
left Nana with Madame Boche and ran to rejoin the procession, whilst
the child, firmly held by the concierge under the porch, watched with
a deeply interested gaze her grandmother disappear at the end of the
street in that beautiful carriage.

At the moment when Gervaise caught up with the procession, Goujet
arrived from another direction. He nodded to her so sympathetically
that she was reminded of how unhappy she was, and began to cry again
as Goujet took his place with the men.

The ceremony at the church was soon got through. The mass dragged a
little, though, because the priest was very old. My-Boots and Bibi-
the-Smoker preferred to remain outside on account of the collection.
Monsieur Madinier studied the priests all the while, and communicated
his observations to Lantier. Those jokers, though so glib with their
Latin, did not even know a word of what they were saying. They buried
a person just in the same way that they would have baptized or married
him, without the least feeling in their heart.

Happily, the cemetery was not far off, the little cemetery of La
Chapelle, a bit of a garden which opened on to the Rue Marcadet. The
procession arrived disbanded, with stampings of feet and everybody
talking of his own affairs. The hard earth resounded, and many would
have liked to have moved about to keep themselves warm. The gaping
hole beside which the coffin was laid was already frozen over, and
looked white and stony, like a plaster quarry; and the followers,
grouped round little heaps of gravel, did not find it pleasant
standing in such piercing cold, whilst looking at the hole likewise
bored them. At length a priest in a surplice came out of a little
cottage. He shivered, and one could see his steaming breath at each
/de profundis/ that he uttered. At the final sign of the cross he
bolted off, without the least desire to go through the service again.
The sexton took his shovel, but on account of the frost, he was only
able to detach large lumps of earth, which beat a fine tune down
below, a regular bombardment of the coffin, an enfilade of artillery
sufficient to make one think the wood was splitting. One may be a
cynic; nevertheless that sort of music soon upsets one's stomach. The
weeping recommenced. They moved off, they even got outside, but they
still heard the detonations. My-Boots, blowing on his fingers, uttered
an observation aloud.

"/Tonnerre de Dieu!/ poor mother Coupeau won't feel very warm!"

"Ladies and gentlemen," said the zinc-worker to the few friends who
remained in the street with the family, "will you permit us to offer
you some refreshments?"

He led the way to a wine shop in the Rue Marcadet, the "Arrival at the
Cemetery." Gervaise, remaining outside, called Goujet, who was moving
off, after again nodding to her. Why didn't he accept a glass of wine?
He was in a hurry; he was going back to the workshop. Then they looked
at each other a moment without speaking.

"I must ask your pardon for troubling you about the sixty francs," at
length murmured the laundress. "I was half crazy, I thought of you--"

"Oh! don't mention it; you're fully forgiven," interrupted the
blacksmith. "And you know, I am quite at your service if any
misfortune should overtake you. But don't say anything to mamma,
because she has her ideas, and I don't wish to cause her annoyance."

She gazed at him. He seemed to her such a good man, and sad-looking,
and so handsome. She was on the verge of accepting his former
proposal, to go away with him and find happiness together somewhere
else. Then an evil thought came to her. It was the idea of borrowing
the six months' back rent from him.

She trembled and resumed in a caressing tone of voice:

"We're still friends, aren't we?"

He shook his head as he answered:

"Yes, we'll always be friends. It's just that, you know, all is over
between us."

And he went off with long strides, leaving Gervaise bewildered,
listening to his last words which rang in her ears with the clang of a
big bell. On entering the wine shop, she seemed to hear a hollow voice
within her which said, "All is over, well! All is over; there is
nothing more for me to do if all is over!" Sitting down, she swallowed
a mouthful of bread and cheese, and emptied a glass full of wine which
she found before her.

The wine shop was a single, long room with a low ceiling occupied by
two large tables on which loaves of bread, large chunks of Brie cheese
and bottles of wine were set out. They ate informally, without a
tablecloth. Near the stove at the back the undertaker's helpers were
finishing their lunch.

"/Mon Dieu!/" exclaimed Monsieur Madinier, "we each have our time. The
old folks make room for the young ones. Your lodging will seem very
empty to you now when you go home."

"Oh! my brother is going to give notice," said Madame Lorilleux
quickly. "That shop's ruined."

They had been working upon Coupeau. Everyone was urging him to give up
the lease. Madame Lerat herself, who had been on very good terms with
Lantier and Virginie for some time past, and who was tickled with the
idea that they were a trifle smitten with each other, talked of
bankruptcy and prison, putting on the most terrified airs. And
suddenly, the zinc-worker, already overdosed with liquor, flew into a
passion, his emotion turned to fury.

"Listen," cried he, poking his nose in his wife's face; "I intend that
you shall listen to me! Your confounded head will always have its own
way. But, this time, I intend to have mine, I warn you!"

"Ah! well," said Lantier, "one never yet brought her to reason by fair
words; it wants a mallet to drive it into her head."

For a time they both went on at her. Meanwhile, the Brie was quickly
disappearing and the wine bottles were pouring like fountains.
Gervaise began to weaken under this persistent pounding. She answered
nothing, but hurried herself, her mouth ever full, as though she had
been very hungry. When they got tired, she gently raised her head and
said,

"That's enough, isn't it? I don't care a straw for the shop! I want no
more of it. Do you understand? It can go to the deuce! All is over!"

Then they ordered some more bread and cheese and talked business. The
Poissons took the rest of the lease and agreed to be answerable for
the two quarters' rent overdue. Boche, moreover, pompously agreed to
the arrangement in the landlord's name. He even then and there let a
lodging to the Coupeaus--the vacant one on the sixth floor, in the
same passage as the Lorilleuxs' apartment. As for Lantier, well! He
would like to keep his room, if it did not inconvenience the Poissons.
The policeman bowed; it did not inconvenience him at all; friends
always get on together, in spite of any difference in their political
ideas. And Lantier, without mixing himself up any more in the matter,
like a man who has at length settled his little business, helped
himself to an enormous slice of bread and cheese; he leant back in his
chair and ate devoutly, his blood tingling beneath his skin, his whole
body burning with a sly joy, and he blinked his eyes to peep first at
Gervaise, and then at Virginie.

"Hi! Old Bazouge!" called Coupeau, "come and have a drink. We're not
proud; we're all workers."

The four undertaker's helpers, who had started to leave, came back to
raise glasses with the group. They thought that the lady had weighed
quite a bit and they had certainly earned a glass of wine. Old Bazouge
gazed steadily at Gervaise without saying a word. It made her feel
uneasy though and she got up and left the men who were beginning to
show signs of being drunk. Coupeau began to sob again, saying he was
feeling very sad.

That evening when Gervaise found herself at home again, she remained
in a stupefied state on a chair. It seemed to her that the rooms were
immense and deserted. Really, it would be a good riddance. But it was
certainly not only mother Coupeau that she had left at the bottom of
the hole in the little garden of the Rue Marcadet. She missed too many
things, most likely a part of her life, and her shop, and her pride of
being an employer, and other feelings besides, which she had buried on
that day. Yes, the walls were bare, and her heart also; it was a
complete clear out, a tumble into the pit. And she felt too tired; she
would pick herself up again later on if she could.

At ten o'clock, when undressing, Nana cried and stamped. She wanted to
sleep in mother Coupeau's bed. Her mother tried to frighten her; but
the child was too precocious. Corpses only filled her with a great
curiosity; so that, for the sake of peace, she was allowed to lie down
in mother Coupeau's place. She liked big beds, the chit; she spread
herself out and rolled about. She slept uncommonly well that night in
the warm and pleasant feather bed.



                              CHAPTER X

The Coupeaus' new lodging was on the sixth floor, staircase B. After
passing Mademoiselle Remanjou's door, you took the corridor to the
left, and then turned again further along. The first door was for the
apartment of the Bijards. Almost opposite, in an airless corner under
a small staircase leading to the roof, was where Pere Bru slept. Two
doors further was Bazouge's room and the Coupeaus were opposite him,
overlooking the court, with one room and a closet. There were only two
more doors along the corridor before reaching that of the Lorilleuxs
at the far end.

A room and a closet, no more. The Coupeaus perched there now. And the
room was scarcely larger than one's hand. And they had to do
everything in there--eat, sleep, and all the rest. Nana's bed just
squeezed into the closet; she had to dress in her father and mother's
room, and her door was kept open at night-time so that she should not
be suffocated. There was so little space that Gervaise had left many
things in the shop for the Poissons. A bed, a table, and four chairs
completely filled their new apartment but she didn't have the courage
to part with her old bureau and so it blocked off half the window.
This made the room dark and gloomy, especially since one shutter was
stuck shut. Gervaise was now so fat that there wasn't room for her in
the limited window space and she had to lean sideways and crane her
neck if she wanted to see the courtyard.

During the first few days, the laundress would continually sit down
and cry. It seemed to her too hard, not being able to move about in
her home, after having been used to so much room. She felt stifled;
she remained at the window for hours, squeezed between the wall and
the drawers and getting a stiff neck. It was only there that she could
breathe freely. However, the courtyard inspired rather melancholy
thoughts. Opposite her, on the sunny side, she would see that same
window she had dreamed about long ago where the spring brought scarlet
vines. Her own room was on the shady side where pots of mignonette
died within a week. Oh, this wasn't at all the sort of life she had
dreamed of. She had to wallow in filth instead of having flowers all
about her.

On leaning out one day, Gervaise experienced a peculiar sensation: she
fancied she beheld herself down below, near the concierge's room under
the porch, her nose in the air, and examining the house for the first
time; and this leap thirteen years backwards caused her heart to
throb. The courtyard was a little dingier and the walls more stained,
otherwise it hadn't changed much. But she herself felt terribly
changed and worn. To begin with, she was no longer below, her face
raised to heaven, feeling content and courageous and aspiring to a
handsome lodging. She was right up under the roof, among the most
wretched, in the dirtiest hole, the part that never received a ray of
sunshine. And that explained her tears; she could scarcely feel
enchanted with her fate.

However, when Gervaise had grown somewhat used to it, the early days
of the little family in their new home did not pass off so badly. The
winter was almost over, and the trifle of money received for the
furniture sold to Virginie helped to make things comfortable. Then
with the fine weather came a piece of luck, Coupeau was engaged to
work in the country at Etampes; and he was there for nearly three
months without once getting drunk, cured for a time by the fresh air.
One has no idea what a quench it is to the tippler's thirst to leave
Paris where the very streets are full of the fumes of wine and brandy.
On his return he was as fresh as a rose, and he brought back in his
pocket four hundred francs with which they paid the two overdue
quarters' rent at the shop that the Poissons had become answerable
for, and also the most pressing of their little debts in the
neighborhood. Gervaise thus opened two or three streets through which
she had not passed for a long time.

She had naturally become an ironer again. Madame Fauconnier was quite
good-hearted if you flattered her a bit, and she was happy to take
Gervaise back, even paying her the same three francs a day as her best
worker. This was out of respect for her former status as an employer.
The household seemed to be getting on well and Gervaise looked forward
to the day when all the debts would be paid. Hard work and economy
would solve all their money troubles. Unfortunately, she dreamed of
this in the warm satisfaction of the large sum earned by her husband.
Soon, she said that the good things never lasted and took things as
they came.

What the Coupeaus most suffered from at that time was seeing the
Poissons installing themselves at their former shop. They were not
naturally of a particularly jealous disposition, but people aggravated
them by purposely expressing amazement in their presence at the
embellishments of their successors. The Boches and the Lorilleuxs
especially, never tired. According to them, no one had ever seen so
beautiful a shop. They were also continually mentioning the filthy
state in which the Poissons had found the premises, saying that it had
cost thirty francs for the cleaning alone.

After much deliberation, Virginie had decided to open a shop
specializing in candies, chocolate, coffee and tea. Lantier had
advised this, saying there was much money to be made from such
delicacies. The shop was stylishly painted black with yellow stripes.
Three carpenters worked for eight days on the interior, putting up
shelves, display cases and counters. Poisson's small inheritance must
have been almost completely used, but Virginie was ecstatic. The
Lorilleuxs and the Boches made sure that Gervaise did not miss a
single improvement and chuckled to themselves while watching her
expression.

There was also a question of a man beneath all this. It was reported
that Lantier had broken off with Gervaise. The neighborhood declared
that it was quite right. In short, it gave a moral tone to the street.
And all the honor of the separation was accorded to the crafty hatter
on whom all the ladies continued to dote. Some said that she was still
crazy about him and he had to slap her to make her leave him alone. Of
course, no one told the actual truth. It was too simple and not
interesting enough.

Actually Lantier climbed to the sixth floor to see her whenever he
felt the impulse. Mademoiselle Remanjou had often seen him coming out
of the Coupeaus' at odd hours.

The situation was even more complicated by neighborhood gossip linking
Lantier and Virginie. The neighbors were a bit too hasty in this also;
he had not even reached the stage of buttock-pinching with her. Still,
the Lorilleuxs delighted in talking sympathetically to Gervaise about
the affair between Lantier and Virginie. The Boches maintained they
had never seen a more handsome couple. The odd thing in all this was
that the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or seemed to have no objection to this new
arrangement which everyone thought was progressing nicely. Those who
had been so harsh to Gervaise were now quite lenient toward Virginie.

Gervaise had previously heard numerous reports about Lantier's affairs
with all sorts of girls on the street and they had bothered her so
little that she hadn't even felt enough resentment to break off the
affair. However, this new intrigue with Virginie wasn't quite so easy
to accept because she was sure that the two of them were just out to
spite her. She hid her resentment though to avoid giving any
satisfaction to her enemies. Mademoiselle Remanjou thought that
Gervaise had words with Lantier over this because one afternoon she
heard the sound of a slap. There was certainly a quarrel because
Lantier stopped speaking to Gervaise for a couple of weeks, but then
he was the first one to make up and things seemed to go along the same
as before.

Coupeau found all this most amusing. The complacent husband who had
been blind to his own situation laughed heartily at Poisson's
predicament. Then Coupeau even teased Gervaise. Her lovers always
dropped her. First the blacksmith and now the hatmaker. The trouble
was that she got involved with undependable trades. She should take up
with a mason, a good solid man. He said such things as if he were
joking, but they upset Gervaise because his small grey eyes seemed to
be boring right into her.

On evenings when Coupeau became bored being alone with his wife up in
their tiny hole under the roof, he would go down for Lantier and
invite him up. He thought their dump was too dreary without Lantier's
company so he patched things up between Gervaise and Lantier whenever
they had a falling out.

In the midst of all this Lantier put on the most consequential airs.
He showed himself both paternal and dignified. On three successive
occasions he had prevented a quarrel between the Coupeaus and the
Poissons. The good understanding between the two families formed a
part of his contentment. Thanks to the tender though firm glances with
which he watched over Gervaise and Virginie, they always pretended to
entertain a great friendship for each other. He reigned over both
blonde and brunette with the tranquillity of a pasha, and fattened on
his cunning. The rogue was still digesting the Coupeaus when he
already began to devour the Poissons. Oh, it did not inconvenience him
much! As soon as one shop was swallowed, he started on a second. It
was only men of his sort who ever have any luck.

It was in June of that year that Nana was confirmed. She was then
nearly thirteen years old, as tall as an asparagus shoot run to seed,
and had a bold, impudent air about her. The year before she had been
sent away from the catechism class on account of her bad behavior;
and the priest had only allowed her to join it this time through fear
of losing her altogether, and of casting one more heathen onto the
street. Nana danced for joy as she thought of the white dress. The
Lorilleuxs, being godfather and godmother, had promised to provide it,
and took care to let everyone in the house know of their present.
Madame Lerat was to give the veil and the cap, Virginie the purse, and
Lantier the prayer-book; so that the Coupeaus looked forward to the
ceremony without any great anxiety. Even the Poissons, wishing to give
a house-warming, chose this occasion, no doubt on the hatter's advice.
They invited the Coupeaus and the Boches, whose little girl was also
going to be confirmed. They provided a leg of mutton and trimmings for
the evening in question.

It so happened that on the evening before, Coupeau returned home in a
most abominable condition, just as Nana was lost in admiration before
the presents spread out on the top of the chest of drawers. The Paris
atmosphere was getting the better of him again; and he fell foul of
his wife and child with drunken arguments and disgusting language
which no one should have uttered at such a time. Nana herself was
beginning to get hold of some very bad expressions in the midst of the
filthy conversations she was continually hearing. On the days when
there was a row, she would often call her mother an old camel and a
cow.

"Where's my food?" yelled the zinc-worker. "I want my soup, you couple
of jades! There's females for you, always thinking of finery! I'll sit
on the gee-gaws, you know, if I don't get my soup!"

"He's unbearable when he's drunk," murmured Gervaise, out of patience;
and turning towards him, she exclaimed:

"It's warming up, don't bother us."

Nana was being modest, because she thought it nice on such a day. She
continued to look at the presents on the chest of drawers, affectedly
lowering her eyelids and pretending not to understand her father's
naughty words. But the zinc-worker was an awful plague on the nights
when he had had too much. Poking his face right against her neck, he
said:

"I'll give you white dresses! So the finery tickles your fancy. They
excite your imagination. Just you cut away from there, you ugly little
brat! Move your hands about, bundle them all into a drawer!"

Nana, with bowed head, did not answer a word. She had taken up the
little tulle cap and was asking her mother how much it cost. And as
Coupeau thrust out his hand to seize hold of the cap, it was Gervaise
who pushed him aside exclaiming:

"Do leave the child alone! She's very good, she's doing no harm."

Then the zinc-worker let out in real earnest.

"Ah! the viragos! The mother and daughter, they make the pair. It's a
nice thing to go to church just to leer at the men. Dare to say it
isn't true, little slattern! I'll dress you in a sack, just to disgust
you, you and your priests. I don't want you to be taught anything
worse than you know already. /Mon Dieu!/ Just listen to me, both of
you!"

At this Nana turned round in a fury, whilst Gervaise had to spread out
her arms to protect the things which Coupeau talked of tearing. The
child looked her father straight in the face; then, forgetting the
modest bearing inculcated by her confessor, she said, clinching her
teeth: "Pig!"

As soon as the zinc-worker had had his soup he went off to sleep. On
the morrow he awoke in a very good humor. He still felt a little of
the booze of the day before but only just sufficient to make him
amiable. He assisted at the dressing of the child, deeply affected by
the white dress and finding that a mere nothing gave the little vermin
quite the look of a young lady.

The two families started off together for the church. Nana and Pauline
walked first, their prayer-books in their hands and holding down their
veils on account of the wind; they did not speak but were bursting
with delight at seeing people come to their shop-doors, and they
smiled primly and devoutly every time they heard anyone say as they
passed that they looked very nice. Madame Boche and Madame Lorilleux
lagged behind, because they were interchanging their ideas about
Clump-clump, a gobble-all, whose daughter would never have been
confirmed if the relations had not found everything for her; yes,
everything, even a new chemise, out of respect for the holy altar.
Madame Lorilleux was rather concerned about the dress, calling Nana a
dirty thing every time the child got dust on her skirt by brushing
against the store fronts.

At church Coupeau wept all the time. It was stupid but he could not
help it. It affected him to see the priest holding out his arms and
all the little girls, looking like angels, pass before him, clasping
their hands; and the music of the organ stirred up his stomach and the
pleasant smell of the incense forced him to sniff, the same as though
someone had thrust a bouquet of flowers into his face. In short he
saw everything cerulean, his heart was touched. Anyway, other
sensitive souls around him were wetting their handkerchiefs. This was
a beautiful day, the most beautiful of his life. After leaving the
church, Coupeau went for a drink with Lorilleux, who had remained dry-
eyed.

That evening the Poissons' house-warming was very lively. Friendship
reigned without a hitch from one end of the feast to the other. When
bad times arrive one thus comes in for some pleasant evenings, hours
during which sworn enemies love each other. Lantier, with Gervaise on
his left and Virginie on his right, was most amiable to both of them,
lavishing little tender caresses like a cock who desires peace in his
poultry-yard. But the queens of the feast were the two little ones,
Nana and Pauline, who had been allowed to keep on their things; they
sat bolt upright through fear of spilling anything on their white
dresses and at every mouthful they were told to hold up their chins so
as to swallow cleanly. Nana, greatly bored by all this fuss, ended by
slobbering her wine over the body of her dress, so it was taken off
and the stains were at once washed out in a glass of water.

Then at dessert the children's future careers were gravely discussed.

Madame Boche had decided that Pauline would enter a shop to learn how
to punch designs on gold and silver. That paid five or six francs a
day. Gervaise didn't know yet because Nana had never indicated any
preference.

"In your place," said Madame Lerat, "I would bring Nana up as an
artificial flower-maker. It is a pleasant and clean employment."

"Flower-makers?" muttered Lorilleux. "Every one of them might as well
walk the streets."

"Well, what about me?" objected Madame Lerat, pursing her lips.
"You're certainly not very polite. I assure you that I don't lie down
for anyone who whistles."

Then all the rest joined together in hushing her. "Madame Lerat! Oh,
Madame Lerat!" By side glances they reminded her of the two girls,
fresh from communion, who were burying their noses in their glasses to
keep from laughing out loud. The men had been very careful, for
propriety's sake, to use only suitable language, but Madame Lerat
refused to follow their example. She flattered herself on her command
of language, as she had often been complimented on the way she could
say anything before children, without any offence to decency.

"Just you listen, there are some very fine women among the flower-
makers!" she insisted. "They're just like other women and they show
good taste when they choose to commit a sin."

"/Mon Dieu!/" interrupted Gervaise, "I've no dislike for artificial
flower-making. Only it must please Nana, that's all I care about; one
should never thwart children on the question of a vocation. Come Nana,
don't be stupid; tell me now, would you like to make flowers?"

The child was leaning over her plate gathering up the cake crumbs with
her wet finger, which she afterwards sucked. She did not hurry
herself. She grinned in her vicious way.

"Why yes, mamma, I should like to," she ended by declaring.

Then the matter was at once settled. Coupeau was quite willing that
Madame Lerat should take the child with her on the morrow to the place
where she worked in the Rue du Caire. And they all talked very gravely
of the duties of life. Boche said that Nana and Pauline were women now
that they had partaken of communion. Poisson added that for the future
they ought to know how to cook, mend socks and look after a house.
Something was even said of their marrying, and of the children they
would some day have. The youngsters listened, laughing to themselves,
elated by the thought of being women. What pleased them the most was
when Lantier teased them, asking if they didn't already have little
husbands. Nana eventually admitted that she cared a great deal for
Victor Fauconnier, son of her mother's employer.

"Ah well," said Madame Lorilleux to the Boches, as they were all
leaving, "she's our goddaughter, but as they're going to put her into
artificial flower-making, we don't wish to have anything more to do
with her. Just one more for the boulevards. She'll be leading them a
merry chase before six months are over."

On going up to bed, the Coupeaus agreed that everything had passed off
well and that the Poissons were not at all bad people. Gervaise even
considered the shop was nicely got up. She was surprised to discover
that it hadn't pained her at all to spend an evening there. While Nana
was getting ready for bed she contemplated her white dress and asked
her mother if the young lady on the third floor had had one like it
when she was married last month.

This was their last happy day. Two years passed by, during which they
sank deeper and deeper. The winters were especially hard for them. If
they had bread to eat during the fine weather, the rain and cold came
accompanied by famine, by drubbings before the empty cupboard, and by
dinner-hours with nothing to eat in the little Siberia of their
larder. Villainous December brought numbing freezing spells and the
black misery of cold and dampness.

The first winter they occasionally had a fire, choosing to keep warm
rather than to eat. But the second winter, the stove stood mute with
its rust, adding a chill to the room, standing there like a cast-iron
gravestone. And what took the life out of their limbs, what above all
utterly crushed them was the rent. Oh! the January quarter, when there
was not a radish in the house and old Boche came up with the bill! It
was like a bitter storm, a regular tempest from the north. Monsieur
Marescot then arrived the following Saturday, wrapped up in a good
warm overcoat, his big hands hidden in woolen gloves; and he was for
ever talking of turning them out, whilst the snow continued to fall
outside, as though it were preparing a bed for them on the pavement
with white sheets. To have paid the quarter's rent they would have
sold their very flesh. It was the rent which emptied the larder and
the stove.

No doubt the Coupeaus had only themselves to blame. Life may be a hard
fight, but one always pulls through when one is orderly and economical
--witness the Lorilleuxs, who paid their rent to the day, the money
folded up in bits of dirty paper. But they, it is true, led a life of
starved spiders, which would disgust one with hard work. Nana as yet
earned nothing at flower-making; she even cost a good deal for her
keep. At Madame Fauconnier's Gervaise was beginning to be looked down
upon. She was no longer so expert. She bungled her work to such an
extent that the mistress had reduced her wages to two francs a day,
the price paid to the clumsiest bungler. But she was still proud,
reminding everyone of her former status as boss of her own shop. When
Madame Fauconnier hired Madame Putois, Gervaise was so annoyed at
having to work beside her former employee that she stayed away for two
weeks.

As for Coupeau, he did perhaps work, but in that case he certainly
made a present of his labor to the Government, for since the time he
returned from Etampes Gervaise had never seen the color of his money.
She no longer looked in his hands when he came home on paydays. He
arrived swinging his arms, his pockets empty, and often without his
handkerchief; well, yes, he had lost his rag, or else some rascally
comrade had sneaked it. At first he always fibbed; there was a
donation to charity, or some money slipped through the hole in his
pocket, or he paid off some imaginary debts. Later, he didn't even
bother to make up anything. He had nothing left because it had all
gone into his stomach.

Madame Boche suggested to Gervaise that she go to wait for him at the
shop exit. This rarely worked though, because Coupeau's comrades would
warn him and the money would disappear into his shoe or someone else's
pocket.

Yes, it was their own fault if every season found them lower and
lower. But that's the sort of thing one never tells oneself,
especially when one is down in the mire. They accused their bad luck;
they pretended that fate was against them. Their home had become a
regular shambles where they wrangled the whole day long. However, they
had not yet come to blows, with the exception of a few impulsive
smacks, which somehow flew about at the height of their quarrels. The
saddest part of the business was that they had opened the cage of
affection; all their better feelings had taken flight, like so many
canaries. The genial warmth of father, mother and child, when united
together and wrapped up in each other, deserted them, and left them
shivering, each in his or her own corner. All three--Coupeau, Gervaise
and Nana--were always in the most abominable tempers, biting each
other's noses off for nothing at all, their eyes full of hatred; and
it seemed as though something had broken the mainspring of the family,
the mechanism which, with happy people, causes hearts to beat in
unison. Ah! it was certain Gervaise was no longer moved as she used to
be when she saw Coupeau at the edge of a roof forty or fifty feet
above the pavement. She would not have pushed him off herself, but if
he had fallen accidentally, in truth it would have freed the earth of
one who was of but little account. The days when they were more
especially at enmity she would ask him why he didn't come back on a
stretcher. She was awaiting it. It would be her good luck they were
bringing back to her. What use was he--that drunkard? To make her
weep, to devour all she possessed, to drive her to sin. Well! Men so
useless as he should be thrown as quickly as possible into the hole
and the polka of deliverance be danced over them. And when the mother
said "Kill him!" the daughter responded "Knock him on the head!" Nana
read all of the reports of accidents in the newspapers, and made
reflections that were unnatural for a girl. Her father had such good
luck an omnibus had knocked him down without even sobering him. Would
the beggar never croak?

In the midst of her own poverty Gervaise suffered even more because
other families around her were also starving to death. Their corner of
the tenement housed the most wretched. There was not a family that ate
every day.

Gervaise felt the most pity for Pere Bru in his cubbyhole under the
staircase where he hibernated. Sometimes he stayed on his bed of straw
without moving for days. Even hunger no longer drove him out since
there was no use taking a walk when no one would invite him to dinner.
Whenever he didn't show his face for several days, the neighbors would
push open his door to see if his troubles were over. No, he was still
alive, just barely. Even Death seemed to have neglected him. Whenever
Gervaise had any bread she gave him the crusts. Even when she hated
all men because of her husband, she still felt sincerely sorry for
Pere Bru, the poor old man. They were letting him starve to death
because he could no longer hold tools in his hand.

The laundress also suffered a great deal from the close neighborhood
of Bazouge, the undertaker's helper. A simple partition, and a very
thin one, separated the two rooms. He could not put his fingers down
his throat without her hearing it. As soon as he came home of an
evening she listened, in spite of herself, to everything he did. His
black leather hat laid with a dull thud on the chest of drawers, like
a shovelful of earth; the black cloak hung up and rustling against the
walls like the wings of some night bird; all the black toggery flung
into the middle of the room and filling it with the trappings of
mourning. She heard him stamping about, felt anxious at the least
movement, and was quite startled if he knocked against the furniture
or rattled any of his crockery. This confounded drunkard was her
preoccupation, filling her with a secret fear mingled with a desire to
know. He, jolly, his belly full every day, his head all upside down,
coughed, spat, sang "Mother Godichon," made use of many dirty
expressions and fought with the four walls before finding his
bedstead. And she remained quite pale, wondering what he could be
doing in there. She imagined the most atrocious things. She got into
her head that he must have brought a corpse home, and was stowing it
away under his bedstead. Well! the newspapers had related something of
the kind--an undertaker's helper who collected the coffins of little
children at his home, so as to save himself trouble and to make only
one journey to the cemetery.

For certain, directly Bazouge arrived, a smell of death seemed to
permeate the partition. One might have thought oneself lodging against
the Pere Lachaise cemetery, in the midst of the kingdom of moles. He
was frightful, the animal, continually laughing all by himself, as
though his profession enlivened him. Even when he had finished his
rumpus and had laid himself on his back, he snored in a manner so
extraordinary that it caused the laundress to hold her breath. For
hours she listened attentively, with an idea that funerals were
passing through her neighbor's room.

The worst was that, in spite of her terrors, something incited
Gervaise to put her ear to the wall, the better to find out what was
taking place. Bazouge had the same effect on her as handsome men have
on good women: they would like to touch them. Well! if fear had not
kept her back, Gervaise would have liked to have handled death, to see
what it was like. She became so peculiar at times, holding her breath,
listening attentively, expecting to unravel the secret through one of
Bazouge's movements, that Coupeau would ask her with a chuckle if she
had a fancy for that gravedigger next door. She got angry and talked
of moving, the close proximity of this neighbor was so distasteful to
her; and yet, in spite of herself, as soon as the old chap arrived,
smelling like a cemetery, she became wrapped again in her reflections,
with the excited and timorous air of a wife thinking of passing a
knife through the marriage contract. Had he not twice offered to pack
her up and carry her off with him to some place where the enjoyment of
sleep is so great, that in a moment one forgets all one's
wretchedness? Perhaps it was really very pleasant. Little by little
the temptation to taste it became stronger. She would have liked to
have tried it for a fortnight or a month. Oh! to sleep a month,
especially in winter, the month when the rent became due, when the
troubles of life were killing her! But it was not possible--one must
sleep forever, if one commences to sleep for an hour; and the thought
of this froze her, her desire for death departed before the eternal
and stern friendship which the earth demanded.

However, one evening in January she knocked with both her fists
against the partition. She had passed a frightful week, hustled by
everyone, without a sou, and utterly discouraged. That evening she was
not at all well, she shivered with fever, and seemed to see flames
dancing about her. Then, instead of throwing herself out of the
window, as she had at one moment thought of doing, she set to knocking
and calling:

"Old Bazouge! Old Bazouge!"

The undertaker's helper was taking off his shoes and singing, "There
were three lovely girls." He had probably had a good day, for he
seemed even more maudlin than usual.

"Old Bazouge! Old Bazouge!" repeated Gervaise, raising her voice.

Did he not hear her then? She was ready to give herself at once; he
might come and take her on his neck, and carry her off to the place
where he carried his other women, the poor and the rich, whom he
consoled. It pained her to hear his song, "There were three lovely
girls," because she discerned in it the disdain of a man with too many
sweethearts.

"What is it? what is it?" stuttered Bazouge; "who's unwell? We're
coming, little woman!"

But the sound of this husky voice awoke Gervaise as though from a
nightmare. And a feeling of horror ascended from her knees to her
shoulders at the thought of seeing herself lugged along in the old
fellow's arms, all stiff and her face as white as a china plate.

"Well! is there no one there now?" resumed Bazouge in silence. "Wait a
bit, we're always ready to oblige the ladies."

"It's nothing, nothing," said the laundress at length in a choking
voice. "I don't require anything, thanks."

She remained anxious, listening to old Bazouge grumbling himself to
sleep, afraid to stir for fear he would think he heard her knocking
again.

In her corner of misery, in the midst of her cares and the cares of
others, Gervaise had, however, a beautiful example of courage in the
home of her neighbors, the Bijards. Little Lalie, only eight years old
and no larger than a sparrow, took care of the household as
competently as a grown person. The job was not an easy one because she
had two little tots, her brother Jules and her sister Henriette, aged
three and five, to watch all day long while sweeping and cleaning.

Ever since Bijard had killed his wife with a kick in the stomach,
Lalie had become the little mother of them all. Without saying a word,
and of her own accord, she filled the place of one who had gone, to
the extent that her brute of a father, no doubt to complete the
resemblance, now belabored the daughter as he had formerly belabored
the mother. Whenever he came home drunk, he required a woman to
massacre. He did not even notice that Lalie was quite little; he would
not have beaten some old trollop harder. Little Lalie, so thin it made
you cry, took it all without a word of complaint in her beautiful,
patient eyes. Never would she revolt. She bent her neck to protect her
face and stifled her sobs so as not to alarm the neighbors. When her
father got tired of kicking her, she would rest a bit until she got
her strength back and then resume her work. It was part of her job,
being beaten daily.

Gervaise entertained a great friendship for her little neighbor. She
treated her as an equal, as a grown-up woman of experience. It must be
said that Lalie had a pale and serious look, with the expression of an
old girl. One might have thought her thirty on hearing her speak. She
knew very well how to buy things, mend the clothes, attend to the
home, and she spoke of the children as though she had already gone
through two or thee nurseries in her time. It made people smile to
hear her talk thus at eight years old; and then a lump would rise in
their throats, and they would hurry away so as not to burst out
crying. Gervaise drew the child towards her as much as she could, gave
her all she could spare of food and old clothing. One day as she tried
one of Nana's old dresses on her, she almost choked with anger on
seeing her back covered with bruises, the skin off her elbow, which
was still bleeding, and all her innocent flesh martyred and sticking
to her bones. Well! Old Bazouge could get a box ready; she would not
last long at that rate! But the child had begged the laundress not to
say a word. She would not have her father bothered on her account. She
took his part, affirming that he would not have been so wicked if it
had not been for the drink. He was mad, he did not know what he did.
Oh! she forgave him, because one ought to forgive madmen everything.

From that time Gervaise watched and prepared to interfere directly she
heard Bijard coming up the stairs. But on most of the occasions she
only caught some whack for her trouble. When she entered their room in
the day-time, she often found Lalie tied to the foot of the iron
bedstead; it was an idea of the locksmith's, before going out, to tie
her legs and her body with some stout rope, without anyone being able
to find out why--a mere whim of a brain diseased by drink, just for
the sake, no doubt, of maintaining his tyranny over the child when he
was no longer there. Lalie, as stiff as a stake, with pins and needles
in her legs, remained whole days at the post. She once even passed a
night there, Bijard having forgotten to come home. Whenever Gervaise,
carried away by her indignation, talked of unfastening her, she
implored her not to disturb the rope, because her father became
furious if he did not find the knots tied the same way he had left
them. Really, it wasn't so bad, it gave her a rest. She smiled as she
said this though her legs were swollen and bruised. What upset her the
most was that she couldn't do her work while tied to the bed. She
could watch the children though, and even did some knitting, so as not
to entirely waste the time.

The locksmith had thought of another little game too. He heated sous
in the frying pan, then placed them on a corner of the mantle-piece;
and he called Lalie, and told her to fetch a couple of pounds of
bread. The child took up the sous unsuspectingly, uttered a cry and
threw them on the ground, shaking her burnt hand. Then he flew into a
fury. Who had saddled him with such a piece of carrion? She lost the
money now! And he threatened to beat her to a jelly if she did not
pick the sous up at once. When the child hesitated she received the
first warning, a clout of such force that it made her see thirty-six
candles. Speechless and with two big tears in the corners of her eyes,
she would pick up the sous and go off, tossing them in the palm of her
hand to cool them.

No, one could never imagine the ferocious ideas which may sprout from
the depths of a drunkard's brain. One afternoon, for instance, Lalie
having made everything tidy was playing with the children. The window
was open, there was a draught, and the wind blowing along the passage
gently shook the door.

"It's Monsieur Hardy," the child was saying. "Come in, Monsieur Hardy.
Pray have the kindness to walk in."

And she curtsied before the door, she bowed to the wind. Henriette and
Jules, behind her, also bowed, delighted with the game and splitting
their sides with laughing, as though being tickled. She was quite rosy
at seeing them so heartily amused and even found some pleasure in it
on her own account, which generally only happened to her on the
thirty-sixth day of each month.

"Good day, Monsieur Hardy. How do you do, Monsieur Hardy?"

But a rough hand pushed open the door, and Bijard entered. Then the
scene changed. Henriette and Jules fell down flat against the wall;
whilst Lalie, terrified, remained standing in the very middle of the
curtsey. The locksmith held in his hand a big waggoner's whip, quite
new, with a long white wooden handle, and a leather thong, terminating
with a bit of whip-cord. He placed the whip in the corner against the
bed and did not give the usual kick to the child who was already
preparing herself by presenting her back. A chuckle exposed his
blackened teeth and he was very lively, very drunk, his red face
lighted up by some idea that amused him immensely.

"What's that?" said he. "You're playing the deuce, eh, you confounded
young hussy! I could hear you dancing about from downstairs. Now then,
come here! Nearer and full face. I don't want to sniff you from
behind. Am I touching you that you tremble like a mass of giblets?
Take my shoes off."

Lalie turned quite pale again and, amazed at not receiving her usual
drubbing, took his shoes off. He had seated himself on the edge of the
bed. He lay down with his clothes on and remained with his eyes open,
watching the child move about the room. She busied herself with one
thing and another, gradually becoming bewildered beneath his glance,
her limbs overcome by such a fright that she ended by breaking a cup.
Then, without getting off the bed, he took hold of the whip and showed
it to her.

"See, little chickie, look at this. It's a present for you. Yes, it's
another fifty sous you've cost me. With this plaything I shall no
longer be obliged to run after you, and it'll be no use you getting
into the corners. Will you have a try? Ah! you broke a cup! Now then,
gee up! Dance away, make your curtsies to Monsieur Hardy!"

He did not even raise himself but lay sprawling on his back, his head
buried in his pillow, making the big whip crack about the room with
the noise of a postillion starting his horses. Then, lowering his arm
he lashed Lalie in the middle of the body, encircling her with the
whip and unwinding it again as though she were a top. She fell and
tried to escape on her hands and knees; but lashing her again he
jerked her to her feet.

"Gee up, gee up!" yelled he. "It's the donkey race! Eh, it'll be fine
of a cold morning in winter. I can lie snug without getting cold or
hurting my chilblains and catch the calves from a distance. In that
corner there, a hit, you hussy! And in that other corner, a hit again!
And in that one, another hit. Ah! if you crawl under the bed I'll
whack you with the handle. Gee up, you jade! Gee up! Gee up!"

A slight foam came to his lips, his yellow eyes were starting from
their black orbits. Lalie, maddened, howling, jumped to the four
corners of the room, curled herself up on the floor and clung to the
walls; but the lash at the end of the big whip caught her everywhere,
cracking against her ears with the noise of fireworks, streaking her
flesh with burning weals. A regular dance of the animal being taught
its tricks. This poor kitten waltzed. It was a sight! Her heels in the
air like little girls playing at skipping, and crying "Father!" She
was all out of breath, rebounding like an india-rubber ball, letting
herself be beaten, unable to see or any longer to seek a refuge. And
her wolf of a father triumphed, calling her a virago, asking her if
she had had enough and whether she understood sufficiently that she
was in future to give up all hope of escaping from him.

But Gervaise suddenly entered the room, attracted by the child's
howls. On beholding such a scene she was seized with a furious
indignation.

"Ah! you brute of a man!" cried she. "Leave her alone, you brigand!
I'll put the police on to you."

Bijard growled like an animal being disturbed, and stuttered:

"Mind your own business a bit, Limper. Perhaps you'd like me to put
gloves on when I stir her up. It's merely to warm her, as you can
plainly see--simply to show her that I've a long arm."

And he gave a final lash with the whip which caught Lalie across the
face. The upper lip was cut, the blood flowed. Gervaise had seized a
chair, and was about to fall on to the locksmith; but the child held
her hands towards her imploringly, saying that it was nothing and that
it was all over. She wiped away the blood with the corner of her apron
and quieted the babies, who were sobbing bitterly, as though they had
received all the blows.

Whenever Gervaise thought of Lalie, she felt she had no right to
complain for herself. She wished she had as much patient courage as
the little girl who was only eight years old and had to endure more
than the rest of the women on their staircase put together. She had
seen Lalie living on stale bread for months and growing thinner and
weaker. Whenever she smuggled some remnants of meat to Lalie, it
almost broke her heart to see the child weeping silently and nibbling
it down only by little bits because her throat was so shrunken.
Gervaise looked on Lalie as a model of suffering and forgiveness and
tried to learn from her how to suffer in silence.

In the Coupeau household the vitriol of l'Assommoir was also
commencing its ravages. Gervaise could see the day coming when her
husband would get a whip like Bijard's to make her dance.

Yes, Coupeau was spinning an evil thread. The time was past when a
drink would make him feel good. His unhealthy soft fat of earlier
years had melted away and he was beginning to wither and turn a leaden
grey. He seemed to have a greenish tint like a corpse putrefying in a
pond. He no longer had a taste for food, not even the most beautifully
prepared stew. His stomach would turn and his decayed teeth refuse to
touch it. A pint a day was his daily ration, the only nourishment he
could digest. When he awoke in the mornings he sat coughing and
spitting up bile for at least a quarter of an hour. It never failed,
you might as well have the basin ready. He was never steady on his
pins till after his first glass of consolation, a real remedy, the
fire of which cauterized his bowels; but during the day his strength
returned. At first he would feel a tickling sensation, a sort of pins-
and-needles in his hands and feet; and he would joke, relating that
someone was having a lark with him, that he was sure his wife put
horse-hair between the sheets. Then his legs would become heavy, the
tickling sensation would end by turning into the most abominable
cramps, which gripped his flesh as though in a vise. That though did
not amuse him so much. He no longer laughed; he stopped suddenly on
the pavement in a bewildered way with a ringing in his ears and his
eyes blinded with sparks. Everything appeared to him to be yellow; the
houses danced and he reeled about for three seconds with the fear of
suddenly finding himself sprawling on the ground. At other times,
while the sun was shining full on his back, he would shiver as though
iced water had been poured down his shoulders. What bothered him the
most was a slight trembling of both his hands; the right hand
especially must have been guilty of some crime, it suffered from so
many nightmares. /Mon Dieu!/ was he then no longer a man? He was
becoming an old woman! He furiously strained his muscles, he seized
hold of his glass and bet that he would hold it perfectly steady as
with a hand of marble; but in spite of his efforts the glass danced
about, jumped to the right, jumped to the left with a hurried and
regular trembling movement. Then in a fury he emptied it into his
gullet, yelling that he would require dozens like it, and afterwards
he undertook to carry a cask without so much as moving a finger.
Gervaise, on the other hand, told him to give up drink if he wished to
cease trembling, and he laughed at her, emptying quarts until he
experienced the sensation again, flying into a rage and accusing the
passing omnibuses of shaking up his liquor.

In the month of March Coupeau returned home one evening soaked
through. He had come with My-Boots from Montrouge, where they had
stuffed themselves full of eel soup, and he had received the full
force of the shower all the way from the Barriere des Fourneaux to the
Barriere Poissonniere, a good distance. During the night he was seized
with a confounded fit of coughing. He was very flushed, suffering from
a violent fever and panting like a broken bellows. When the Boches'
doctor saw him in the morning and listened against his back he shook
his head, and drew Gervaise aside to advise her to have her husband
taken to the hospital. Coupeau was suffering from pneumonia.

Gervaise did not worry herself, you may be sure. At one time she would
have been chopped into pieces before trusting her old man to the saw-
bones. After the accident in the Rue de la Nation she had spent their
savings in nursing him. But those beautiful sentiments don't last when
men take to wallowing in the mire. No, no; she did not intend to make
a fuss like that again. They might take him and never bring him back;
she would thank them heartily. Yet, when the litter arrived and
Coupeau was put into it like an article of furniture, she became all
pale and bit her lips; and if she grumbled and still said it was a
good job, her heart was no longer in her words. Had she but ten francs
in her drawer she would not have let him go.

She accompanied him to the Lariboisiere Hospital, saw the nurses put
him to bed at the end of a long hall, where the patients in a row,
looking like corpses, raised themselves up and followed with their
eyes the comrade who had just been brought in. It was a veritable
death chamber. There was a suffocating, feverish odor and a chorus of
coughing. The long hall gave the impression of a small cemetery with
its double row of white beds looking like an aisle of marble tombs.
When Coupeau remained motionless on his pillow, Gervaise left, having
nothing to say, nor anything in her pocket that could comfort him.

Outside, she turned to look up at the monumental structure of the
hospital and recalled the days when Coupeau was working there, putting
on the zinc roof, perched up high and singing in the sun. He wasn't
drinking in those days. She used to watch for him from her window in
the Hotel Boncoeur and they would both wave their handkerchiefs in
greeting. Now, instead of being on the roof like a cheerful sparrow,
he was down below. He had built his own place in the hospital where he
had come to die. /Mon Dieu!/ It all seemed so far way now, that time
of young love.

On the day after the morrow, when Gervaise called to obtain news of
him, she found the bed empty. A Sister of Charity told her that they
had been obliged to remove her husband to the Asylum of Sainte-Anne,
because the day before he had suddenly gone wild. Oh! a total leave-
taking of his senses; attempts to crack his skull against the wall;
howls which prevented the other patients from sleeping. It all came
from drink, it seemed. Gervaise went home very upset. Well, her
husband had gone crazy. What would it be like if he came home? Nana
insisted that they should leave him in the hospital because he might
end by killing both of them.

Gervaise was not able to go to Sainte-Anne until Sunday. It was a
tremendous journey. Fortunately, the omnibus from the Boulevard
Rochechouart to La Glaciere passed close to the asylum. She went down
the Rue de la Sante, buying two oranges on her way, so as not to
arrive empty-handed. It was another monumental building, with grey
courtyards, interminable corridors and a smell of rank medicaments,
which did not exactly inspire liveliness. But when they had admitted
her into a cell she was quite surprised to see Coupeau almost jolly.
He was just then seated on the throne, a spotlessly clean wooden case,
and they both laughed at her finding him in this position. Well, one
knows what an invalid is. He squatted there like a pope with his cheek
of earlier days. Oh! he was better, as he could do this.

"And the pneumonia?" inquired the laundress.

"Done for!" replied he. "They cured it in no time. I still cough a
little, but that's all that is left of it."

Then at the moment of leaving the throne to get back into his bed, he
joked once more. "It's lucky you have a strong nose and are not
bothered."

They laughed louder than ever. At heart they felt joyful. It was by
way of showing their contentment without a host of phrases that they
thus joked together. One must have had to do with patients to know the
pleasure one feels at seeing all their functions at work again.

When he was back in bed she gave him the two oranges and this filled
him with emotion. He was becoming quite nice again ever since he had
had nothing but tisane to drink. She ended by venturing to speak to
him about his violent attack, surprised at hearing him reason like in
the good old times.

"Ah, yes," said he, joking at his own expense; "I talked a precious
lot of nonsense! Just fancy, I saw rats and ran about on all fours to
put a grain of salt under their tails. And you, you called to me, men
were trying to kill you. In short, all sorts of stupid things, ghosts
in broad daylight. Oh! I remember it well, my noodle's still solid.
Now it's over, I dream a bit when I'm asleep. I have nightmares, but
everyone has nightmares."

Gervaise remained with him until the evening. When the house surgeon
came, at the six o'clock inspection, he made him spread his hands;
they hardly trembled at all, scarcely a quiver at the tips of the
fingers. However, as night approached, Coupeau was little by little
seized with uneasiness. He twice sat up in bed looking on the ground
and in the dark corners of the room. Suddenly he thrust out an arm and
appeared to crush some vermin against the wall.

"What is it?" asked Gervaise, frightened.

"The rats! The rats!" murmured he.

Then, after a pause, gliding into sleep, he tossed about, uttering
disconnected phrases.

"/Mon Dieu!/ they're tearing my skin!--Oh! the filthy beasts!--Keep
steady! Hold your skirts right round you! beware of the dirty bloke
behind you!--/Mon Dieu!/ she's down and the scoundrels laugh!--
Scoundrels! Blackguards! Brigands!"

He dealt blows into space, caught hold of his blanket and rolled it
into a bundle against his chest, as though to protect the latter from
the violence of the bearded men whom he beheld. Then, an attendant
having hastened to the spot, Gervaise withdrew, quite frozen by the
scene.

But when she returned a few days later, she found Coupeau completely
cured. Even the nightmares had left him; he could sleep his ten hours
right off as peacefully as a child and without stirring a limb. So his
wife was allowed to take him away. The house surgeon gave him the
usual good advice on leaving and advised him to follow it. If he
recommenced drinking, he would again collapse and would end by dying.
Yes, it solely depended upon himself. He had seen how jolly and
healthy one could become when one did not get drunk. Well, he must
continue at home the sensible life he had led at Sainte-Anne, fancy
himself under lock and key and that dram-shops no longer existed.

"The gentleman's right," said Gervaise in the omnibus which was taking
them back to the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or.

"Of course he's right," replied Coupeau.

Then, after thinking a minute, he resumed:

"Oh! you know, a little glass now and again can't kill a man; it helps
the digestion."

And that very evening he swallowed a glass of bad spirit, just to keep
his stomach in order. For eight days he was pretty reasonable. He was
a great coward at heart; he had no desire to end his days in the
Bicetre mad-house. But his passion got the better of him; the first
little glass led him, in spite of himself, to a second, to a third and
to a fourth, and at the end of a fortnight, he had got back to his old
ration, a pint of vitriol a day. Gervaise, exasperated, could have
beaten him. To think that she had been stupid enough to dream once
more of leading a worthy life, just because she had seen him at the
asylum in full possession of his good sense! Another joyful hour had
flown, the last one no doubt! Oh! now, as nothing could reclaim him,
not even the fear of his near death, she swore she would no longer put
herself out; the home might be all at sixes and sevens, she did not
care any longer; and she talked also of leaving him.

Then hell upon earth recommenced, a life sinking deeper into the mire,
without a glimmer of hope for something better to follow. Nana,
whenever her father clouted her, furiously asked why the brute was not
at the hospital. She was awaiting the time when she would be earning
money, she would say, to treat him to brandy and make him croak
quicker. Gervaise, on her side, flew into a passion one day that
Coupeau was regretting their marriage. Ah! she had brought him her
saucy children; ah! she had got herself picked up from the pavement,
wheedling him with rosy dreams! /Mon Dieu!/ he had a rare cheek! So
many words, so many lies. She hadn't wished to have anything to do
with him, that was the truth. He had dragged himself at her feet to
make her give way, whilst she was advising him to think well what he
was about. And if it was all to come over again, he would hear how she
would just say "no!" She would sooner have an arm cut off. Yes, she'd
had a lover before him; but a woman who has had a lover, and who is a
worker, is worth more than a sluggard of a man who sullies his honor
and that of his family in all the dram-shops. That day, for the first
time, the Coupeaus went in for a general brawl, and they whacked each
other so hard that an old umbrella and the broom were broken.

Gervaise kept her word. She sank lower and lower; she missed going to
her work oftener, spent whole days in gossiping, and became as soft as
a rag whenever she had a task to perform. If a thing fell from her
hands, it might remain on the floor; it was certainly not she who
would have stooped to pick it up. She took her ease about everything,
and never handled a broom except when the accumulation of filth almost
brought her to the ground. The Lorilleuxs now made a point of holding
something to their noses whenever they passed her room; the stench was
poisonous, said they. Those hypocrites slyly lived at the end of the
passage, out of the way of all these miseries which filled the corner
of the house with whimpering, locking themselves in so as not to have
to lend twenty sou pieces. Oh! kind-hearted folks, neighbors awfully
obliging! Yes, you may be sure! One had only to knock and ask for a
light or a pinch of salt or a jug of water, one was certain of getting
the door banged in one's face. With all that they had vipers' tongues.
They protested everywhere that they never occupied themselves with
other people. This was true whenever it was a question of assisting a
neighbor; but they did so from morning to night, directly they had a
chance of pulling any one to pieces. With the door bolted and a rug
hung up to cover the chinks and the key-hole, they would treat
themselves to a spiteful gossip without leaving their gold wire for a
moment.

The fall of Clump-clump in particular kept them purring like pet cats.
Completely ruined! Not a sou remaining. They smiled gleefully at the
small piece of bread she would bring back when she went shopping and
kept count of the days when she had nothing at all to eat. And the
clothes she wore now. Disgusting rags! That's what happened when one
tried to live high.

Gervaise, who had an idea of the way in which they spoke of her, would
take her shoes off, and place her ear against their door; but the rug
over the door prevented her from hearing much. She was heartily sick
of them; she continued to speak to them, to avoid remarks, though
expecting nothing but unpleasantness from such nasty persons, but no
longer having strength even to give them as much as they gave her,
passed the insults off as a lot of nonsense. And besides she only
wanted her own pleasure, to sit in a heap twirling her thumbs, and
only moving when it was a question of amusing herself, nothing more.

One Saturday Coupeau had promised to take her to the circus. It was
well worth while disturbing oneself to see ladies galloping along on
horses and jumping through paper hoops. Coupeau had just finished a
fortnight's work, he could well spare a couple of francs; and they had
also arranged to dine out, just the two of them, Nana having to work
very late that evening at her employer's because of some pressing
order. But at seven o'clock there was no Coupeau; at eight o'clock it
was still the same. Gervaise was furious. Her drunkard was certainly
squandering his earnings with his comrades at the dram-shops of the
neighborhood. She had washed a cap and had been slaving since the
morning over the holes of an old dress, wishing to look decent. At
last, towards nine o'clock, her stomach empty, her face purple with
rage, she decided to go down and look for Coupeau.

"Is it your husband you want?" called Madame Boche, on catching sight
of Gervaise looking very glum. "He's at Pere Colombe's. Boche has just
been having some cherry brandy with him."

Gervaise uttered her thanks and stalked stiffly along the pavement
with the determination of flying at Coupeau's eyes. A fine rain was
falling which made the walk more unpleasant still. But when she
reached l'Assommoir, the fear of receiving the drubbing herself if
she badgered her old man suddenly calmed her and made her prudent. The
shop was ablaze with the lighted gas, the flames of which were as
brilliant as suns, and the bottles and jars illuminated the walls with
their colored glass. She stood there an instant stretching her neck,
her eyes close to the window, looking between two bottle placed there
for show, watching Coupeau who was right at the back; he was sitting
with some comrades at a little zinc table, all looking vague and blue
in the tobacco smoke; and, as one could not hear them yelling, it
created a funny effect to see them gesticulating with their chins
thrust forward and their eyes starting out of their heads. Good
heavens! Was it really possible that men could leave their wives and
their homes to shut themselves up thus in a hole where they were
choking?

The rain trickled down her neck; she drew herself up and went off to
the exterior Boulevard, wrapped in thought and not daring to enter.
Ah! well Coupeau would have welcomed her in a pleasant way, he who
objected to be spied upon! Besides, it really scarcely seemed to her
the proper place for a respectable woman. Twice she went back and
stood before the shop window, her eyes again riveted to the glass,
annoyed at still beholding those confounded drunkards out of the rain
and yelling and drinking. The light of l'Assommoir was reflected in
the puddles on the pavement, which simmered with little bubbles caused
by the downpour. At length she thought she was too foolish, and
pushing open the door, she walked straight up to the table where
Coupeau was sitting. After all it was her husband she came for, was it
not? And she was authorized in doing so, because he had promised to
take her to the circus that evening. So much the worse! She had no
desire to melt like a cake of soap out on the pavement.

"Hullo! It's you, old woman!" exclaimed the zinc-worker, half choking
with a chuckle. "Ah! that's a good joke. Isn't it a good joke now?"

All the company laughed. Gervaise remained standing, feeling rather
bewildered. Coupeau appeared to her to be in a pleasant humor, so she
ventured to say:

"You remember, we've somewhere to go. We must hurry. We shall still be
in time to see something."

"I can't get up, I'm glued, oh! without joking," resumed Coupeau, who
continued laughing. "Try, just to satisfy yourself; pull my arm with
all your strength; try it! harder than that, tug away, up with it! You
see it's that louse Pere Colombe who's screwed me to his seat."

Gervaise had humored him at this game, and when she let go of his arm,
the comrades thought the joke so good that they tumbled up against one
another, braying and rubbing their shoulders like donkeys being
groomed. The zinc-worker's mouth was so wide with laughter that you
could see right down his throat.

"You great noodle!" said he at length, "you can surely sit down a
minute. You're better here than splashing about outside. Well, yes; I
didn't come home as I promised, I had business to attend to. Though
you may pull a long face, it won't alter matters. Make room, you
others."

"If madame would accept my knees she would find them softer than the
seat," gallantly said My-Boots.

Gervaise, not wishing to attract attention, took a chair and sat down
at a short distance from the table. She looked at what the men were
drinking, some rotgut brandy which shone like gold in the glasses; a
little of it had dropped upon the table and Salted-Mouth, otherwise
Drink-without-Thirst, dipped his finger in it whilst conversing and
wrote a woman's name--"Eulalie"--in big letters. She noticed that
Bibi-the-Smoker looked shockingly jaded and thinner than a hundred-
weight of nails. My-Boot's nose was in full bloom, a regular purple
Burgundy dahlia. They were all quite dirty, their beards stiff, their
smocks ragged and stained, their hands grimy with dirt. Yet they were
still quite polite.

Gervaise noticed a couple of men at the bar. They were so drunk that
they were spilling the drink down their chins when they thought they
were wetting their whistles. Fat Pere Colombe was calmly serving round
after round.

The atmosphere was very warm, the smoke from the pipes ascended in the
blinding glare of the gas, amidst which it rolled about like dust,
drowning the customers in a gradually thickening mist; and from this
cloud there issued a deafening and confused uproar, cracked voices,
clinking of glasses, oaths and blows sounding like detonations. So
Gervaise pulled a very wry face, for such a sight is not funny for a
woman, especially when she is not used to it; she was stifling, with a
smarting sensation in her eyes, and her head already feeling heavy
from the alcoholic fumes exhaled by the whole place. Then she suddenly
experienced the sensation of something more unpleasant still behind
her back. She turned round and beheld the still, the machine which
manufactured drunkards, working away beneath the glass roof of the
narrow courtyard with the profound trepidation of its hellish cookery.
Of an evening, the copper parts looked more mournful than ever, lit up
only on their rounded surface with one big red glint; and the shadow
of the apparatus on the wall at the back formed most abominable
figures, bodies with tails, monsters opening their jaws as though to
swallow everyone up.

"Listen, mother Talk-too-much, don't make any of your grimaces!" cried
Coupeau. "To blazes, you know, with all wet blankets! What'll you
drink?"

"Nothing, of course," replied the laundress. "I haven't dined yet."

"Well! that's all the more reason for having a glass; a drop of
something sustains one."

But, as she still retained her glum expression, My-Boots again did the
gallant.

"Madame probably likes sweet things," murmured he.

"I like men who don't get drunk," retorted she, getting angry. "Yes, I
like a fellow who brings home his earnings, and who keeps his word
when he makes a promise."

"Ah! so that's what upsets you?" said the zinc-worker, without ceasing
to chuckle. "Yes, you want your share. Then, big goose, why do you
refuse a drink? Take it, it's so much to the good."

She looked at him fixedly, in a grave manner, a wrinkle marking her
forehead with a black line. And she slowly replied:

"Why, you're right, it's a good idea. That way, we can drink up the
coin together."

Bibi-the-Smoker rose from his seat to fetch her a glass of anisette.
She drew her chair up to the table. Whilst she was sipping her
anisette, a recollection suddenly flashed across her mind, she
remembered the plum she had taken with Coupeau, near the door, in the
old days, when he was courting her. At that time, she used to leave
the juice of fruits preserved in brandy. And now, here was she going
back to liqueurs. Oh! she knew herself well, she had not two
thimblefuls of will. One would only have had to have given her a
walloping across the back to have made her regularly wallow in drink.
The anisette even seemed to be very good, perhaps rather too sweet and
slightly sickening. She went on sipping as she listened to Salted-
Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, tell of his affair with fat
Eulalie, a fish peddler and very shrewd at locating him. Even if his
comrades tried to hide him, she could usually sniff him out when he
was late. Just the night before she had slapped his face with a
flounder to teach him not to neglect going to work. Bibi-the-Smoker
and My-Boots nearly split their sides laughing. They slapped Gervaise
on the shoulder and she began to laugh also, finding it amusing in
spite of herself. They then advised her to follow Eulalie's example
and bring an iron with her so as to press Coupeau's ears on the
counters of the wineshops.

"Ah, well, no thanks," cried Coupeau as he turned upside down the
glass his wife had emptied. "You pump it out pretty well. Just look,
you fellows, she doesn't take long over it."

"Will madame take another?" asked Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-
without-Thirst.

No, she had had enough. Yet she hesitated. The anisette had slightly
bothered her stomach. She should have taken straight brandy to settle
her digestion.

She cast side glances at the drunkard manufacturing machine behind
her. That confounded pot, as round as the stomach of a tinker's fat
wife, with its nose that was so long and twisted, sent a shiver down
her back, a fear mingled with a desire. Yes, one might have thought it
the metal pluck of some big wicked woman, of some witch who was
discharging drop by drop the fire of her entrails. A fine source of
poison, an operation which should have been hidden away in a cellar,
it was so brazen and abominable! But all the same she would have liked
to have poked her nose inside it, to have sniffed the odor, have
tasted the filth, though the skin might have peeled off her burnt
tongue like the rind off an orange.

"What's that you're drinking?" asked she slyly of the men, her eyes
lighted up by the beautiful golden color of their glasses.

"That, old woman," answered Coupeau, "is Pere Colombe's camphor. Don't
be silly now and we'll give you a taste."

And when they had brought her a glass of the vitriol, the rotgut, and
her jaws had contracted at the first mouthful, the zinc-worker
resumed, slapping his thighs:

"Ha! It tickles your gullet! Drink it off at one go. Each glassful
cheats the doctor of six francs."

At the second glass Gervaise no longer felt the hunger which had been
tormenting her. Now she had made it up with Coupeau, she no longer
felt angry with him for not having kept his word. They would go to the
circus some other day; it was not so funny to see jugglers galloping
about on houses. There was no rain inside Pere Colombe's and if the
money went in brandy, one at least had it in one's body; one drank it
bright and shining like beautiful liquid gold. Ah! she was ready to
send the whole world to blazes! Life was not so pleasant after all,
besides it seemed some consolation to her to have her share in
squandering the cash. As she was comfortable, why should she not
remain? One might have a discharge of artillery; she did not care to
budge once she had settled in a heap. She nursed herself in a pleasant
warmth, her bodice sticking to her back, overcome by a feeling of
comfort which benumbed her limbs. She laughed all to herself, her
elbows on the table, a vacant look in her eyes, highly amused by two
customers, a fat heavy fellow and a tiny shrimp, seated at a
neighboring table, and kissing each other lovingly. Yes, she laughed
at the things to see in l'Assommoir, at Pere Colombe's full moon
face, a regular bladder of lard, at the customers smoking their short
clay pipes, yelling and spitting, and at the big flames of gas which
lighted up the looking-glasses and the bottles of liqueurs. The smell
no longer bothered her, on the contrary it tickled her nose, and she
thought it very pleasant. Her eyes slightly closed, whilst she
breathed very slowly, without the least feeling of suffocation,
tasting the enjoyment of the gentle slumber which was overcoming her.
Then, after her third glass, she let her chin fall on her hands; she
now only saw Coupeau and his comrades, and she remained nose to nose
with them, quite close, her cheeks warmed by their breath, looking at
their dirty beards as though she had been counting the hairs. My-Boots
drooled, his pipe between his teeth, with the dumb and grave air of a
dozing ox. Bibi-the-Smoker was telling a story--the manner in which he
emptied a bottle at a draught, giving it such a kiss that one
instantly saw its bottom. Meanwhile Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-
without-Thirst, had gone and fetched the wheel of fortune from the
counter, and was playing with Coupeau for drinks.

"Two hundred! You're lucky; you get high numbers every time!"

The needle of the wheel grated, and the figure of Fortune, a big red
woman placed under glass, turned round and round until it looked like
a mere spot in the centre, similar to a wine stain.

"Three hundred and fifty! You must have been inside it, you confounded
lascar! Ah! I shan't play any more!"

Gervaise amused herself with the wheel of fortune. She was feeling
awfully thirsty, and calling My-Boots "my child." Behind her the
machine for manufacturing drunkards continued working, with its murmur
of an underground stream; and she despaired of ever stopping it, of
exhausting it, filled with a sullen anger against it, feeling a
longing to spring upon the big still as upon some animal, to kick it
with her heels and stave in its belly. Then everything began to seem
all mixed up. The machine seemed to be moving itself and she thought
she was being grabbed by its copper claws, and that the underground
stream was now flowing over her body.

Then the room danced round, the gas-jets seemed to shoot like stars.
Gervaise was drunk. She heard a furious wrangle between Salted-Mouth,
otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, and that rascal Pere Colombe. There
was a thief of a landlord who wanted one to pay for what one had not
had! Yet one was not at a gangster's hang-out. Suddenly there was a
scuffling, yells were heard and tables were upset. It was Pere Colombe
who was turning the party out without the least hesitation, and in the
twinkling of an eye. On the other side of the door they blackguarded
him and called him a scoundrel. It still rained and blew icy cold.
Gervaise lost Coupeau, found him and then lost him again. She wished
to go home; she felt the shops to find her way. This sudden darkness
surprised her immensely. At the corner of the Rue des Poissonniers,
she sat down in the gutter thinking she was at the wash-house. The
water which flowed along caused her head to swim, and made her very
ill. At length she arrived, she passed stiffly before the concierge's
room where she perfectly recognized the Lorilleuxs and the Poissons
seated at the table having dinner, and who made grimaces of disgust on
beholding her in that sorry state.

She never remembered how she had got up all those flights of stairs.
Just as she was turning into the passage at the top, little Lalie, who
heard her footsteps, hastened to meet her, opening her arms
caressingly, and saying, with a smile:

"Madame Gervaise, papa has not returned. Just come and see my little
children sleeping. Oh! they look so pretty!"

But on beholding the laundress' besotted face, she tremblingly drew
back. She was acquainted with that brandy-laden breath, those pale
eyes, that convulsed mouth. Then Gervaise stumbled past without
uttering a word, whilst the child, standing on the threshold of her
room, followed her with her dark eyes, grave and speechless.



                              CHAPTER XI

Nana was growing up and becoming wayward. At fifteen years old she had
expanded like a calf, white-skinned and very fat; so plump, indeed,
you might have called her a pincushion. Yes, such she was--fifteen
years old, full of figure and no stays. A saucy magpie face, dipped in
milk, a skin as soft as a peach skin, a funny nose, pink lips and eyes
sparkling like tapers, which men would have liked to light their pipes
at. Her pile of fair hair, the color of fresh oats, seemed to have
scattered gold dust over her temples, freckle-like as it were, giving
her brow a sunny crown. Ah! a pretty doll, as the Lorilleuxs say, a
dirty nose that needed wiping, with fat shoulders, which were as fully
rounded and as powerful as those of a full-grown woman. Nana no longer
needed to stuff wads of paper into her bodice, her breasts were grown.
She wished they were larger though, and dreamed of having breasts like
a wet-nurse.

What made her particularly tempting was a nasty habit she had of
protruding the tip of her tongue between her white teeth. No doubt on
seeing herself in the looking-glasses she had thought she was pretty
like this; and so, all day long, she poked her tongue out of her
mouth, in view of improving her appearance.

"Hide your lying tongue!" cried her mother.

Coupeau would often get involved, pounding his fist, swearing and
shouting:

"Make haste and draw that red rag inside again!"

Nana showed herself very coquettish. She did not always wash her feet,
but she bought such tight boots that she suffered martyrdom in St.
Crispin's prison; and if folks questioned her when she turned purple
with pain, she answered that she had the stomach ache, so as to avoid
confessing her coquetry. When bread was lacking at home it was
difficult for her to trick herself out. But she accomplished miracles,
brought ribbons back from the workshop and concocted toilettes--dirty
dresses set off with bows and puffs. The summer was the season of her
greatest triumphs. With a cambric dress which had cost her six francs
she filled the whole neighborhood of the Goutte-d'Or with her fair
beauty. Yes, she was known from the outer Boulevards to the
Fortifications, and from the Chaussee de Clignancourt to the Grand Rue
of La Chapelle. Folks called her "chickie," for she was really as
tender and as fresh-looking as a chicken.

There was one dress which suited her perfectly, a white one with pink
dots. It was very simple and without a frill. The skirt was rather
short and revealed her ankles. The sleeves were deeply slashed and
loose, showing her arms to the elbow. She pinned the neck back into a
wide V as soon as she reached a dark corner of the staircase to avoid
getting her ears boxed by her father for exposing the snowy whiteness
of her throat and the golden shadow between her breasts. She also tied
a pink ribbon round her blond hair.

Sundays she spent the entire day out with the crowds and loved it when
the men eyed her hungrily as they passed. She waited all week long for
these glances. She would get up early to dress herself and spend hours
before the fragment of mirror that was hung over the bureau. Her
mother would scold her because the entire building could see her
through the window in her chemise as she mended her dress.

Ah! she looked cute like that said father Coupeau, sneering and
jeering at her, a real Magdalene in despair! She might have turned
"savage woman" at a fair, and have shown herself for a penny. Hide
your meat, he used to say, and let me eat my bread! In fact, she was
adorable, white and dainty under her overhanging golden fleece, losing
temper to the point that her skin turned pink, not daring to answer
her father, but cutting her thread with her teeth with a hasty,
furious jerk, which shook her plump but youthful form.

Then immediately after breakfast she tripped down the stairs into the
courtyard. The entire tenement seemed to be resting sleepily in the
peacefulness of a Sunday afternoon. The workshops on the ground floor
were closed. Gaping windows revealed tables in some apartments that
were already set for dinner, awaiting families out working up an
appetite by strolling along the fortifications.

Then, in the midst of the empty, echoing courtyard, Nana, Pauline and
other big girls engaged in games of battledore and shuttlecock. They
had grown up together and were now becoming queens of their building.
Whenever a man crossed the court, flutelike laugher would arise, and
then starched skirts would rustle like the passing of a gust of wind.

The games were only an excuse for them to make their escape. Suddenly
stillness fell upon the tenement. The girls had glided out into the
street and made for the outer Boulevards. Then, linked arm-in-arm
across the full breadth of the pavement, they went off, the whole six
of them, clad in light colors, with ribbons tied around their bare
heads. With bright eyes darting stealthy glances through their
partially closed eyelids, they took note of everything, and constantly
threw back their necks to laugh, displaying the fleshy part of their
chins. They would swing their hips, or group together tightly, or
flaunt along with awkward grace, all for the purpose of calling
attention to the fact that their forms were filling out.

Nana was in the centre with her pink dress all aglow in the sunlight.
She gave her arm to Pauline, whose costume, yellow flowers on a white
ground, glared in similar fashion, dotted as it were with little
flames. As they were the tallest of the band, the most woman-like and
most unblushing, they led the troop and drew themselves up with
breasts well forward whenever they detected glances or heard
complimentary remarks. The others extended right and left, puffing
themselves out in order to attract attention. Nana and Pauline
resorted to the complicated devices of experienced coquettes. If they
ran till they were out of breath, it was in view of showing their
white stockings and making the ribbons of their chignons wave in the
breeze. When they stopped, pretending complete breathlessness, you
would certainly spot someone they knew quite near, one of the young
fellows of the neighborhood. This would make them dawdle along
languidly, whispering and laughing among themselves, but keeping a
sharp watch through their downcast eyelids.

They went on these strolls of a Sunday mainly for the sake of these
chance meetings. Tall lads, wearing their Sunday best, would stop
them, joking and trying to catch them round their waists. Pauline was
forever running into one of Madame Gaudron's sons, a seventeen-year-
old carpenter, who would treat her to fried potatoes. Nana could spot
Victor Fauconnier, the laundress's son and they would exchange kisses
in dark corners. It never went farther than that, but they told each
other some tall tales.

Then when the sun set, the great delight of these young hussies was to
stop and look at the mountebanks. Conjurors and strong men turned up
and spread threadbare carpets on the soil of the avenue. Loungers
collected and a circle formed whilst the mountebank in the centre
tried his muscles under his faded tights. Nana and Pauline would stand
for hours in the thickest part of the crowd. Their pretty, fresh
frocks would get crushed between great-coats and dirty work smocks. In
this atmosphere of wine and sweat they would laugh gaily, finding
amusement in everything, blooming naturally like roses growing out of
a dunghill. The only thing that vexed them was to meet their fathers,
especially when the hatter had been drinking. So they watched and
warned one another.

"Look, Nana," Pauline would suddenly cry out, "here comes father
Coupeau!"

"Well, he's drunk too. Oh, dear," said Nana, greatly bothered. "I'm
going to beat it, you know. I don't want him to give me a wallop.
Hullo! How he stumbles! Good Lord, if he could only break his neck!"

At other times, when Coupeau came straight up to her without giving
her time to run off, she crouched down, made herself small and
muttered: "Just you hide me, you others. He's looking for me, and he
promised he'd knock my head off if he caught me hanging about."

Then when the drunkard had passed them she drew herself up again, and
all the others followed her with bursts of laughter. He'll find her--
he will--he won't! It was a true game of hide and seek. One day,
however, Boche had come after Pauline and caught her by both ears, and
Coupeau had driven Nana home with kicks.

Nana was now a flower-maker and earned forty sous a day at
Titreville's place in the Rue du Caire, where she had served as
apprentice. The Coupeaus had kept her there so that she might remain
under the eye of Madame Lerat, who had been forewoman in the workroom
for ten years. Of a morning, when her mother looked at the cuckoo
clock, off she went by herself, looking very pretty with her shoulders
tightly confined in her old black dress, which was both too narrow and
too short; and Madame Lerat had to note the hour of her arrival and
tell it to Gervaise. She was allowed twenty minutes to go from the Rue
de la Goutte-d'Or to the Rue du Caire, and it was enough, for these
young hussies have the legs of racehorses. Sometimes she arrived
exactly on time but so breathless and flushed that she must have
covered most of the distance at a run after dawdling along the way.
More often she was a few minutes late. Then she would fawn on her aunt
all day, hoping to soften her and keep her from telling. Madame Lerat
understood what it was to be young and would lie to the Coupeaus, but
she also lectured Nana, stressing the dangers a young girl runs on the
streets of Paris. /Mon Dieu!/ she herself was followed often enough!

"Oh! I watch, you needn't fear," said the widow to the Coupeaus. "I
will answer to you for her as I would for myself. And rather than let
a blackguard squeeze her, why I'd step between them."

The workroom at Titreville's was a large apartment on the first floor,
with a broad work-table standing on trestles in the centre. Round the
four walls, the plaster of which was visible in parts where the dirty
yellowish-grey paper was torn away, there were several stands covered
with old cardboard boxes, parcels and discarded patterns under a thick
coating of dust. The gas had left what appeared to be like a daub of
soot on the ceiling. The two windows opened so wide that without
leaving the work-table the girls could see the people walking past on
the pavement over the way.

Madame Lerat arrived the first, in view of setting an example. Then
for a quarter of an hour the door swayed to and fro, and all the
workgirls scrambled in, perspiring with tumbled hair. One July morning
Nana arrived the last, as very often happened. "Ah, me!" she said, "it
won't be a pity when I have a carriage of my own." And without even
taking off her hat, one which she was weary of patching up, she
approached the window and leant out, looking to the right and the left
to see what was going on in the street.

"What are you looking at?" asked Madame Lerat, suspiciously. "Did your
father come with you?"

"No, you may be sure of that," answered Nana coolly. "I'm looking at
nothing--I'm seeing how hot it is. It's enough to make anyone, having
to run like that."

It was a stifling hot morning. The workgirls had drawn down the
Venetian blinds, between which they could spy out into the street; and
they had at last begun working on either side of the table, at the
upper end of which sat Madame Lerat. They were eight in number, each
with her pot of glue, pincers, tools and curling stand in front of
her. On the work-table lay a mass of wire, reels, cotton wool, green
and brown paper, leaves and petals cut out of silk, satin or velvet.
In the centre, in the neck of a large decanter, one flower-girl had
thrust a little penny nosegay which had been fading on her breast
since the day before.

"Oh, I have some news," said a pretty brunette named Leonie as she
leaned over her cushion to crimp some rose petals. "Poor Caroline is
very unhappy about that fellow who used to wait for her every
evening."

"Ah!" said Nana, who was cutting thin strips of green paper. "A man
who cheats on her every day!"

Madame Lerat had to display severity over the muffled laughter. Then
Leonie whispered suddenly:

"Quiet. The boss!"

It was indeed Madame Titreville who entered. The tall thin woman
usually stayed down in the shop. The girls were quite in awe of her
because she never joked with them. All the heads were now bent over
the work in diligent silence. Madame Titreville slowly circled the
work-table. She told one girl her work was sloppy and made her do the
flower over. Then she stalked out as stiffly as she had come in.

The complaining and low laughter began again.

"Really, young ladies!" said Madame Lerat, trying to look more severe
than ever. "You will force me to take measures."

The workgirls paid no attention to her. They were not afraid of her.
She was too easy-going because she enjoyed being surrounded by these
young girls whose zest for life sparkled in their eyes. She enjoyed
taking them aside to hear their confidences about their lovers. She
even told their fortunes with cards whenever a corner of the work-
table was free. She was only offended by coarse expressions. As long
as you avoided those you could say what you pleased.

To tell the truth, Nana perfected her education in nice style in the
workroom! No doubt she was already inclined to go wrong. But this was
the finishing stroke--associating with a lot of girls who were already
worn out with misery and vice. They all hobnobbed and rotted together,
just the story of the baskets of apples when there are rotten ones
among them. They maintained a certain propriety in public, but the
smut flowed freely when they got to whispering together in a corner.

For inexperienced girls like Nana, there was an undesirable atmosphere
around the workshop, an air of cheap dance halls and unorthodox
evenings brought in by some of the girls. The laziness of mornings
after a gay night, the shadows under the eyes, the lounging, the
hoarse voices, all spread an odor of dark perversion over the work-
table which contrasted sharply with the brilliant fragility of the
artificial flowers. Nana eagerly drank it all in and was dizzy with
joy when she found herself beside a girl who had been around. She
always wanted to sit next to big Lisa, who was said to be pregnant,
and she kept glancing curiously at her neighbor as though expecting
her to swell up suddenly.

"It's hot enough to make one stifle," Nana said, approaching a window
as if to draw the blind farther down; but she leant forward and again
looked out both to the right and left.

At the same moment Leonie, who was watching a man stationed at the
foot of the pavement over the way, exclaimed, "What's that old fellow
about? He's been spying here for the last quarter of an hour."

"Some tom cat," said Madame Lerat. "Nana, just come and sit down! I
told you not to stand at the window."

Nana took up the stems of some violets she was rolling, and the whole
workroom turned its attention to the man in question. He was a well-
dressed individual wearing a frock coat and he looked about fifty
years old. He had a pale face, very serous and dignified in
expression, framed round with a well trimmed grey beard. He remained
for an hour in front of a herbalist's shop with his eyes fixed on the
Venetian blinds of the workroom. The flower-girls indulged in little
bursts of laughter which died away amid the noise of the street, and
while leaning forward, to all appearance busy with their work, they
glanced askance so as not to lose sight of the gentleman.

"Ah!" remarked Leonie, "he wears glasses. He's a swell. He's waiting
for Augustine, no doubt."

But Augustine, a tall, ugly, fair-haired girl, sourly answered that
she did not like old men; whereupon Madame Lerat, jerking her head,
answered with a smile full of underhand meaning:

"That is a great mistake on your part, my dear; the old ones are more
affectionate."

At this moment Leonie's neighbor, a plump little body, whispered
something in her ear and Leonie suddenly threw herself back on her
chair, seized with a fit of noisy laughter, wriggling, looking at the
gentleman and then laughing all the louder. "That's it. Oh! that's
it," she stammered. "How dirty that Sophie is!"

"What did she say? What did she say?" asked the whole workroom, aglow
with curiosity.

Leonie wiped the tears from her eyes without answering. When she
became somewhat calmer, she began curling her flowers again and
declared, "It can't be repeated."

The others insisted, but she shook her head, seized again with a gust
of gaiety. Thereupon Augustine, her left-hand neighbor, besought her
to whisper it to her; and finally Leonie consented to do so with her
lips close to Augustine's ear. Augustine threw herself back and
wriggled with convulsive laughter in her turn. Then she repeated the
phrase to a girl next to her, and from ear to ear it traveled round
the room amid exclamations and stifled laughter. When they were all of
them acquainted with Sophie's disgusting remark they looked at one
another and burst out laughing together although a little flushed and
confused. Madame Lerat alone was not in the secret and she felt
extremely vexed.

"That's very impolite behavior on your part, young ladies," said she.
"It is not right to whisper when other people are present. Something
indecent no doubt! Ah! that's becoming!"

She did not dare go so far as to ask them to pass Sophie's remark on
to her although she burned to hear it. So she kept her eyes on her
work, amusing herself by listening to the conversation. Now no one
could make even an innocent remark without the others twisting it
around and connecting it with the gentleman on the sidewalk. Madame
Lerat herself once sent them into convulsions of laughter when she
said, "Mademoiselle Lisa, my fire's gone out. Pass me yours."

"Oh! Madame Lerat's fire's out!" laughed the whole shop.

They refused to listen to any explanation, but maintained they were
going to call in the gentleman outside to rekindle Madame Lerat's
fire.

However, the gentleman over the way had gone off. The room grew calmer
and the work was carried on in the sultry heat. When twelve o'clock
struck--meal-time--they all shook themselves. Nana, who had hastened
to the window again, volunteered to do the errands if they liked. And
Leonie ordered two sous worth of shrimps, Augustine a screw of fried
potatoes, Lisa a bunch of radishes, Sophie a sausage. Then as Nana was
doing down the stairs, Madame Lerat, who found her partiality for the
window that morning rather curious, overtook her with her long legs.

"Wait a bit," said she. "I'll go with you. I want to buy something
too."

But in the passage below she perceived the gentleman, stuck there like
a candle and exchanging glances with Nana. The girl flushed very red,
whereupon her aunt at once caught her by the arm and made her trot
over the pavement, whilst the individual followed behind. Ah! so the
tom cat had come for Nana. Well, that /was/ nice! At fifteen years and
a half to have men trailing after her! Then Madame Lerat hastily began
to question her. /Mon Dieu!/ Nana didn't know; he had only been
following her for five days, but she could not poke her nose out of
doors without stumbling on men. She believed he was in business; yes,
a manufacturer of bone buttons. Madame Lerat was greatly impressed.
She turned round and glanced at the gentleman out of the corner of her
eye.

"One can see he's got a deep purse," she muttered. "Listen to me,
kitten; you must tell me everything. You have nothing more to fear
now."

Whilst speaking they hastened from shop to shop--to the pork
butcher's, the fruiterer's, the cook-shop; and the errands in greasy
paper were piled up in their hands. Still they remained amiable,
flouncing along and casting bright glances behind them with gusts of
gay laughter. Madame Lerat herself was acting the young girl, on
account of the button manufacturer who was still following them.

"He is very distinguished looking," she declared as they returned into
the passage. "If he only has honorable views--"

Then, as they were going up the stairs she suddenly seemed to remember
something. "By the way, tell me what the girls were whispering to each
other--you know, what Sophie said?"

Nana did not make any ceremony. Only she caught Madame Lerat by the
hand, and caused her to descend a couple of steps, for, really, it
wouldn't do to say it aloud, not even on the stairs. When she
whispered it to her, it was so obscene that Madame Lerat could only
shake her head, opening her eyes wide, and pursing her lips. Well, at
least her curiosity wasn't troubling her any longer.

From that day forth Madame Lerat regaled herself with her niece's
first love adventure. She no longer left her, but accompanied her
morning and evening, bringing her responsibility well to the fore.
This somewhat annoyed Nana, but all the same she expanded with pride
at seeing herself guarded like a treasure; and the talk she and her
aunt indulged in in the street with the button manufacturer behind
them flattered her, and rather quickened her desire for new
flirtations. Oh! her aunt understood the feelings of the heart; she
even compassionated the button manufacturer, this elderly gentleman,
who looked so respectable, for, after all, sentimental feelings are
more deeply rooted among people of a certain age. Still she watched.
And, yes, he would have to pass over her body before stealing her
niece.

One evening she approached the gentleman, and told him, as straight as
a bullet, that his conduct was most improper. He bowed to her politely
without answering, like an old satyr who was accustomed to hear
parents tell him to go about his business. She really could not be
cross with him, he was too well mannered.

Then came lectures on love, allusions to dirty blackguards of men, and
all sorts of stories about hussies who had repented of flirtations,
which left Nana in a state of pouting, with eyes gleaming brightly in
her pale face.

One day, however, in the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonniere the button
manufacturer ventured to poke his nose between the aunt and the niece
to whisper some things which ought not to have been said. Thereupon
Madame Lerat was so frightened that she declared she no longer felt
able to handle the matter and she told the whole business to her
brother. Then came another row. There were some pretty rumpuses in the
Coupeaus' room. To begin with, the zinc-worker gave Nana a hiding.
What was that he learnt? The hussy was flirting with old men. All
right. Only let her be caught philandering out of doors again, she'd
be done for; he, her father, would cut off her head in a jiffy. Had
the like ever been seen before! A dirty nose who thought of beggaring
her family! Thereupon he shook her, declaring in God's name that she'd
have to walk straight, for he'd watch her himself in future. He now
looked her over every night when she came in, even going so far as to
sniff at her and make her turn round before him.

One evening she got another hiding because he discovered a mark on her
neck that he maintained was the mark of a kiss. Nana insisted it was a
bruise that Leonie had given her when they were having a bit of a
rough-house. Yet at other times her father would tease her, saying she
was certainly a choice morsel for men. Nana began to display the
sullen submissiveness of a trapped animal. She was raging inside.

"Why don't you leave her alone?" repeated Gervaise, who was more
reasonable. "You will end by making her wish to do it by talking to
her about it so much."

Ah! yes, indeed, she did wish to do it. She itched all over, longing
to break loose and gad all the time, as father Coupeau said. He
insisted so much on the subject that even an honest girl would have
fired up. Even when he was abusing her, he taught her a few things she
did not know as yet, which, to say the least was astonishing. Then,
little by little she acquired some singular habits. One morning he
noticed her rummaging in a paper bag and rubbing something on her
face. It was rice powder, which she plastered on her delicate satin-
like skin with perverse taste. He caught up the paper bag and rubbed
it over her face violently enough to graze her skin and called her a
miller's daughter. On another occasion she brought some ribbon home,
to do up her old black hat which she was so ashamed of. He asked her
in a furious voice where she had got those ribbons from. Had she
earned them by lying on her back or had she bagged them somewhere? A
hussy or a thief, and perhaps both by now?

More than once he found her with some pretty little doodad. She had
found a little interlaced heart in the street on Rue d'Aboukir. Her
father crushed the heart under his foot, driving her to the verge of
throwing herself at him to ruin something of his. For two years she
had been longing for one of those hearts, and now he had smashed it!
This was too much, she was reaching the end of the line with him.

Coupeau was often in the wrong in the manner in which he tried to rule
Nana. His injustice exasperated her. She at last left off attending
the workshop and when the zinc-worker gave her a hiding, she declared
she would not return to Titreville's again, for she was always placed
next to Augustine, who must have swallowed her feet to have such a
foul breath. Then Coupeau took her himself to the Rue du Caire and
requested the mistress of the establishment to place her always next
to Augustine, by way of punishment. Every morning for a fortnight he
took the trouble to come down from the Barriere Poissonniere to escort
Nana to the door of the flower shop. And he remained for five minutes
on the footway, to make sure that she had gone in. But one morning
while he was drinking a glass with a friend in a wineshop in the Rue
Saint-Denis, he perceived the hussy darting down the street. For a
fortnight she had been deceiving him; instead of going into the
workroom, she climbed a story higher, and sat down on the stairs,
waiting till he had gone off. When Coupeau began casting the blame on
Madame Lerat, the latter flatly replied that she would not accept it.
She had told her niece all she ought to tell her, to keep her on her
guard against men, and it was not her fault if the girl still had a
liking for the nasty beasts. Now, she washed her hands of the whole
business; she swore she would not mix up in it, for she knew what she
knew about scandalmongers in her own family, yes, certain persons who
had the nerve to accuse her of going astray with Nana and finding an
indecent pleasure in watching her take her first misstep. Then Coupeau
found out from the proprietress that Nana was being corrupted by that
little floozie Leonie, who had given up flower-making to go on the
street. Nana was being tempted by the jingle of cash and the lure of
adventure on the streets.

In the tenement in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or, Nana's old fellow was
talked about as a gentleman everyone was acquainted with. Oh! he
remained very polite, even a little timid, but awfully obstinate and
patient, following her ten paces behind like an obedient poodle.
Sometimes, indeed, he ventured into the courtyard. One evening, Madame
Gaudron met him on the second floor landing, and he glided down
alongside the balusters with his nose lowered and looking as if on
fire, but frightened. The Lorilleuxs threatened to move out if that
wayward niece of theirs brought men trailing in after her. It was
disgusting. The staircase was full of them. The Boches said that they
felt sympathy for the old gentleman because he had fallen for a tramp.
He was really a respectable businessman, they had seen his button
factory on the Boulevard de la Villette. He would be an excellent
catch for a decent girl.

For the first month Nana was greatly amused with her old flirt. You
should have seen him always dogging her--a perfect great nuisance, who
followed far behind, in the crowd, without seeming to do so. And his
legs! Regular lucifers. No more moss on his pate, only four straight
hairs falling on his neck, so that she was always tempted to ask him
where his hairdresser lived. Ah! what an old gaffer, he was comical
and no mistake, nothing to get excited over.

Then, on finding him always behind her, she no longer thought him so
funny. She became afraid of him and would have called out if he had
approached her. Often, when she stopped in front of a jeweler's shop,
she heard him stammering something behind her. And what he said was
true; she would have liked to have had a cross with a velvet neck-
band, or a pair of coral earrings, so small you would have thought
they were drops of blood.

More and more, as she plodded through the mire of the streets, getting
splashed by passing vehicles and being dazzled by the magnificence of
the window displays, she felt longings that tortured her like hunger
pangs, yearnings for better clothes, for eating in restaurants, for
going to the theatre, for a room of her own with nice furniture. Right
at those moments, it never failed that her old gentleman would come up
to whisper something in her ear. Oh, if only she wasn't afraid of him,
how readily she would have taken up with him.

When the winter arrived, life became impossible at home. Nana had her
hiding every night. When her father was tired of beating her, her
mother smacked her to teach her how to behave. And there were free-
for-alls; as soon as one of them began to beat her, the other took her
part, so that all three of them ended by rolling on the floor in the
midst of the broken crockery. And with all this, there were short
rations and they shivered with cold. Whenever the girl bought anything
pretty, a bow or a pair of buttons, her parents confiscated the
purchase and drank what they could get for it. She had nothing of her
own, excepting her allowance of blows, before coiling herself up
between the rags of a sheet, where she shivered under her little black
skirt, which she stretched out by way of a blanket. No, that cursed
life could not continue; she was not going to leave her skin in it.
Her father had long since ceased to count for her; when a father gets
drunk like hers did, he isn't a father, but a dirty beast one longs to
be rid of. And now, too, her mother was doing down the hill in her
esteem. She drank as well. She liked to go and fetch her husband at
Pere Colombe's, so as to be treated; and she willingly sat down, with
none of the air of disgust that she had assumed on the first occasion,
draining glasses indeed at one gulp, dragging her elbows over the
table for hours and leaving the place with her eyes starting out of
her head.

When Nana passed in front of l'Assommoir and saw her mother inside,
with her nose in her glass, fuddled in the midst of the disputing men,
she was seized with anger; for youth which has other dainty thoughts
uppermost does not understand drink. On these evenings it was a pretty
sight. Father drunk, mother drunk, a hell of a home that stunk with
liquor, and where there was no bread. To tell the truth, a saint would
not have stayed in the place. So much the worse if she flew the coop
one of these days; her parents would have to say their /mea culpa/,
and own that they had driven her out themselves.

One Saturday when Nana came home she found her father and her mother
in a lamentable condition. Coupeau, who had fallen across the bed was
snoring. Gervaise, crouching on a chair was swaying her head, with her
eyes vaguely and threateningly staring into vacancy. She had forgotten
to warm the dinner, the remains of a stew. A tallow dip which she
neglected to snuff revealed the shameful misery of their hovel.

"It's you, shrimp?" stammered Gervaise. "Ah, well, your father will
take care of you."

Nana did not answer, but remained pale, looking at the cold stove, the
table on which no plates were laid, the lugubrious hovel which this
pair of drunkards invested with the pale horror of their callousness.
She did not take off her hat but walked round the room; then with her
teeth tightly set, she opened the door and went out.

"You are doing down again?" asked her mother, who was unable even to
turn her head.

"Yes; I've forgotten something. I shall come up again. Good evening."

And she did not return. On the morrow when the Coupeaus were sobered
they fought together, reproaching each other with being the cause of
Nana's flight. Ah! she was far away if she were running still! As
children are told of sparrows, her parents might set a pinch of salt
on her tail, and then perhaps they would catch her. It was a great
blow, and crushed Gervaise, for despite the impairment of her
faculties, she realized perfectly well that her daughter's misconduct
lowered her still more; she was alone now, with no child to think
about, able to let herself sink as low as she could fall. She drank
steadily for three days. Coupeau prowled along the exterior Boulevards
without seeing Nana and then came home to smoke his pipe peacefully.
He was always back in time for his soup.

In this tenement, where girls flew off every month like canaries whose
cages are left open, no one was astonished to hear of the Coupeaus'
mishap. But the Lorilleuxs were triumphant. Ah! they had predicted
that the girl would reward her parents in this fashion. It was
deserved; all artificial flower-girls went that way. The Boches and
the Poissons also sneered with an extraordinary display and outlay of
grief. Lantier alone covertly defended Nana. /Mon Dieu!/ said he, with
his puritanical air, no doubt a girl who so left her home did offend
her parents; but, with a gleam in the corner of his eyes, he added
that, dash it! the girl was, after all, too pretty to lead such a life
of misery at her age.

"Do you know," cried Madame Lorilleux, one day in the Boches' room,
where the party were taking coffee; "well, as sure as daylight, Clump-
clump sold her daughter. Yes she sold her, and I have proof of it!
That old fellow, who was always on the stairs morning and night, went
up to pay something on account. It stares one in the face. They were
seen together at the Ambigu Theatre--the young wench and her old tom
cat. Upon my word of honor, they're living together, it's quite
plain."

They discussed the scandal thoroughly while finishing their coffee.
Yes, it was quite possible. Soon most of the neighborhood accepted the
conclusion that Gervaise had actually sold her daughter.

Gervaise now shuffled along in her slippers, without caring a rap for
anyone. You might have called her a thief in the street, she wouldn't
have turned round. For a month past she hadn't looked at Madame
Fauconnier's; the latter had had to turn her out of the place to avoid
disputes. In a few weeks' time she had successively entered the
service of eight washerwomen; she only lasted two or three days in
each place before she got the sack, so badly did she iron the things
entrusted to her, careless and dirty, her mind failing to such a point
that she quite forgot her own craft. At last realizing her own
incapacity she abandoned ironing; and went out washing by the day at
the wash-house in the Rue Neuve, where she still jogged on,
floundering about in the water, fighting with filth, reduced to the
roughest but simplest work, a bit lower on the down-hill slopes. The
wash-house scarcely beautified her. A real mud-splashed dog when she
came out of it, soaked and showing her blue skin. At the same time she
grew stouter and stouter, despite her frequent dances before the empty
sideboard, and her leg became so crooked that she could no longer walk
beside anyone without the risk of knocking him over, so great indeed
was her limp.

Naturally enough when a woman falls to this point all her pride leaves
her. Gervaise had divested herself of all her old self-respect,
coquetry and need of sentiment, propriety and politeness. You might
have kicked her, no matter where, she did not feel kicks for she had
become too fat and flabby. Lantier had altogether neglected her; he no
longer escorted her or even bothered to give her a pinch now and
again. She did not seem to notice this finish of a long liaison slowly
spun out, and ending in mutual insolence. It was a chore the less for
her. Even Lantier's intimacy with Virginie left her quite calm, so
great was her indifference now for all that she had been so upset
about in the past. She would even have held a candle for them now.

Everyone was aware that Virginie and Lantier were carrying on. It was
much too convenient, especially with Poisson on duty every other
night. Lantier had thought of himself when he advised Virginie to deal
in dainties. He was too much of a Provincial not to adore sugared
things; and in fact he would have lived off sugar candy, lozenges,
pastilles, sugar plums and chocolate. Sugared almonds especially left
a little froth on his lips so keenly did they tickle his palate. For a
year he had been living only on sweetmeats. He opened the drawers and
stuffed himself whenever Virginie asked him to mind the shop. Often,
when he was talking in the presence of five or six other people, he
would take the lid off a jar on the counter, dip his hand into it and
begin to nibble at something sweet; the glass jar remained open and
its contents diminished. People ceased paying attention to it, it was
a mania of his so he had declared. Besides, he had devised a perpetual
cold, an irritation of the throat, which he always talked of calming.

He still did not work, for he had more and more important schemes than
ever in view. He was contriving a superb invention--the umbrella hat,
a hat which transformed itself into an umbrella on your head as soon
as a shower commenced to fall; and he promised Poisson half shares in
the profit of it, and even borrowed twenty franc pieces of him to
defray the cost of experiments. Meanwhile the shop melted away on his
tongue. All the stock-in-trade followed suit down to the chocolate
cigars and pipes in pink caramel. Whenever he was stuffed with
sweetmeats and seized with a fit of tenderness, he paid himself with a
last lick on the groceress in a corner, who found him all sugar with
lips which tasted like burnt almonds. Such a delightful man to kiss!
He was positively becoming all honey. The Boches said he merely had to
dip a finger into his coffee to sweeten it.

Softened by this perpetual dessert, Lantier showed himself paternal
towards Gervaise. He gave her advice and scolded her because she no
longer liked to work. Indeed! A woman of her age ought to know how to
turn herself round. And he accused her of having always been a
glutton. Nevertheless, as one ought to hold out a helping hand, even
to folks who don't deserve it, he tried to find her a little work.
Thus he had prevailed upon Virginie to let Gervaise come once a week
to scrub the shop and the rooms. That was the sort of thing she
understood and on each occasion she earned her thirty sous. Gervaise
arrived on the Saturday morning with a pail and a scrubbing brush,
without seeming to suffer in the least at having to perform a dirty,
humble duty, a charwoman's work in the dwelling-place where she had
reigned as the beautiful fair-haired mistress. It was a last
humiliation, the end of her pride.

One Saturday she had a hard job of it. It had rained for three days
and the customers seemed to have brought all the mud of the
neighborhood into the shop on the soles of their boots. Virginie was
at the counter doing the grand, with her hair well combed, and wearing
a little white collar and a pair of lace cuffs. Beside her, on the
narrow seat covered with red oil-cloth, Lantier did the dandy, looking
for the world as if he were at home, as if he were the real master of
the place, and from time to time he carelessly dipped his hand into a
jar of peppermint drops, just to nibble something sweet according to
his habit.

"Look here, Madame Coupeau!" cried Virginie, who was watching the
scrubbing with compressed lips, "you have left some dirt over there in
the corner. Scrub that rather better please."

Gervaise obeyed. She returned to the corner and began to scrub again.
She bent double on her knees in the midst of the dirty water, with her
shoulders protruding, her arms stiff and purple with cold. Her old
skirt, fairly soaked, stuck to her figure. And there on the floor she
looked a dirty, ill-combed drab, the rents in her jacket showing her
puffy form, her fat, flabby flesh which heaved, swayed and floundered
about as she went about her work; and all the while she perspired to
such a point that from her moist face big drops of sweat fell on to
the floor.

"The more elbow grease one uses, the more it shines," said Lantier,
sententiously, with his mouth full of peppermint drops.

Virginie, who sat back with the demeanor of a princess, her eyes
partly open, was still watching the scrubbing, and indulging in
remarks. "A little more on the right there. Take care of the wainscot.
You know I was not very well pleased last Saturday. There were some
stains left."

And both together, the hatter and the groceress assumed a more
important air, as if they had been on a throne whilst Gervaise dragged
herself through the black mud at their feet. Virginie must have
enjoyed herself, for a yellowish flame darted from her cat's eyes, and
she looked at Lantier with an insidious smile. At last she was
revenged for that hiding she had received at the wash-house, and which
she had never forgotten.

Whenever Gervaise ceased scrubbing, a sound of sawing could be heard
from the back room. Through the open doorway, Poisson's profile stood
out against the pale light of the courtyard. He was off duty that day
and was profiting by his leisure time to indulge in his mania for
making little boxes. He was seated at a table and was cutting out
arabesques in a cigar box with extraordinary care.

"Say, Badingue!" cried Lantier, who had given him this surname again,
out of friendship. "I shall want that box of yours as a present for a
young lady."

Virginie gave him a pinch and he reached under the counter to run his
fingers like a creeping mouse up her leg.

"Quite so," said the policeman. "I was working for you, Auguste, in
view of presenting you with a token of friendship."

"Ah, if that's the case, I'll keep your little memento!" rejoined
Lantier with a laugh. "I'll hang it round my neck with a ribbon."

Then suddenly, as if this thought brought another one to his memory,
"By the way," he cried, "I met Nana last night."

This news caused Gervaise such emotion that she sunk down in the dirty
water which covered the floor of the shop.

"Ah!" she muttered speechlessly.

"Yes; as I was going down the Rue des Martyrs, I caught sight of a
girl who was on the arm of an old fellow in front of me, and I said to
myself: I know that shape. I stepped faster and sure enough found
myself face to face with Nana. There's no need to pity her, she looked
very happy, with her pretty woolen dress on her back, a gold cross
and an awfully pert expression."

"Ah!" repeated Gervaise in a husky voice.

Lantier, who had finished the pastilles, took some barley-sugar out of
another jar.

"She's sneaky," he resumed. "She made a sign to me to follow her, with
wonderful composure. Then she left her old fellow somewhere in a cafe
--oh a wonderful chap, the old bloke, quite used up!--and she came and
joined me under the doorway. A pretty little serpent, pretty, and
doing the grand, and fawning on you like a little dog. Yes, she kissed
me, and wanted to have news of everyone--I was very pleased to meet
her."

"Ah!" said Gervaise for the third time. She drew herself together, and
still waited. Hadn't her daughter had a word for her then? In the
silence Poisson's saw could be heard again. Lantier, who felt gay, was
sucking his barley-sugar, and smacking his lips.

"Well, if /I/ saw her, I should go over to the other side of the
street," interposed Virginie, who had just pinched the hatter again
most ferociously. "It isn't because you are there, Madame Coupeau, but
your daughter is rotten to the core. Why, every day Poisson arrests
girls who are better than she is."

Gervaise said nothing, nor did she move; her eyes staring into space.
She ended by jerking her head to and fro, as if in answer to her
thoughts, whilst the hatter, with a gluttonous mien, muttered:

"Ah, a man wouldn't mind getting a bit of indigestion from that sort
of rottenness. It's as tender as chicken."

But the grocer gave him such a terrible look that he had to pause and
quiet her with some delicate attention. He watched the policeman, and
perceiving that he had his nose lowered over his little box again, he
profited of the opportunity to shove some barley-sugar into Virginie's
mouth. Thereupon she laughed at him good-naturedly and turned all her
anger against Gervaise.

"Just make haste, eh? The work doesn't do itself while you remain
stuck there like a street post. Come, look alive, I don't want to
flounder about in the water till night time."

And she added hatefully in a lower tone: "It isn't my fault if her
daughter's gone and left her."

No doubt Gervaise did not hear. She had begun to scrub the floor
again, with her back bent and dragging herself along with a frog-like
motion. She still had to sweep the dirty water out into the gutter,
and then do the final rinsing.

After a pause, Lantier, who felt bored, raised his voice again: "Do
you know, Badingue," he cried, "I met your boss yesterday in the Rue
de Rivoli. He looked awfully down in the mouth. He hasn't six months'
life left in his body. Ah! after all, with the life he leads--"

He was talking about the Emperor. The policeman did not raise his
eyes, but curtly answered: "If you were the Government you wouldn't be
so fat."

"Oh, my dear fellow, if I were the Government," rejoined the hatter,
suddenly affecting an air of gravity, "things would go on rather
better, I give you my word for it. Thus, their foreign policy--why,
for some time past it has been enough to make a fellow sweat. If I--I
who speak to you--only knew a journalist to inspire him with my
ideas."

He was growing animated, and as he had finished crunching his barley-
sugar, he opened a drawer from which he took a number of jujubes,
which he swallowed while gesticulating.

"It's quite simple. Before anything else, I should give Poland her
independence again, and I should establish a great Scandinavian state
to keep the Giant of the North at bay. Then I should make a republic
out of all the little German states. As for England, she's scarcely to
be feared; if she budged ever so little I should send a hundred
thousand men to India. Add to that I should send the Sultan back to
Mecca and the Pope to Jerusalem, belaboring their backs with the butt
end of a rifle. Eh? Europe would soon be clean. Come, Badingue, just
look here."

He paused to take five or six jujubes in his hand. "Why, it wouldn't
take longer than to swallow these."

And he threw one jujube after another into his open mouth.

"The Emperor has another plan," said the policeman, after reflecting
for a couple of minutes.

"Oh, forget it," rejoined the hatter. "We know what his plan is. All
Europe is laughing at us. Every day the Tuileries footmen find your
boss under the table between a couple of high society floozies."

Poisson rose to his feet. He came forward and placed his hand on his
heart, saying: "You hurt me, Auguste. Discuss, but don't involve
personalities."

Thereupon Virginie intervened, bidding them stop their row. She didn't
care a fig for Europe. How could two men, who shared everything else,
always be disputing about politics? For a minute they mumbled some
indistinct words. Then the policeman, in view of showing that he
harbored no spite, produced the cover of his little box, which he had
just finished; it bore the inscription in marquetry: "To Auguste, a
token of friendship." Lantier, feeling exceedingly flattered, lounged
back and spread himself out so that he almost sat upon Virginie. And
the husband viewed the scene with his face the color of an old wall
and his bleared eyes fairly expressionless; but all the same, at
moments the red hairs of his moustaches stood up on end of their own
accord in a very singular fashion, which would have alarmed any man
who was less sure of his business than the hatter.

This beast of a Lantier had the quiet cheek which pleases ladies. As
Poisson turned his back he was seized with the idea of printing a kiss
on Madame Poisson's left eye. As a rule he was stealthily prudent, but
when he had been disputing about politics he risked everything, so as
to show the wife his superiority. These gloating caresses, cheekily
stolen behind the policeman's back, revenged him on the Empire which
had turned France into a house of quarrels. Only on this occasion he
had forgotten Gervaise's presence. She had just finished rinsing and
wiping the shop, and she stood near the counter waiting for her thirty
sous. However, the kiss on Virginie's eye left her perfectly calm, as
being quite natural, and as part of a business she had no right to mix
herself up in. Virginie seemed rather vexed. She threw the thirty sous
on to the counter in front of Gervaise. The latter did not budge but
stood there waiting, still palpitating with the effort she had made in
scrubbing, and looking as soaked and as ugly as a dog fished out of
the sewer.

"Then she didn't tell you anything?" she asked the hatter at last.

"Who?" he cried. "Ah, yes; you mean Nana. No, nothing else. What a
tempting mouth she has, the little hussy! Real strawberry jam!"

Gervaise went off with her thirty sous in her hand. The holes in her
shoes spat water forth like pumps; they were real musical shoes, and
played a tune as they left moist traces of their broad soles along the
pavement.

In the neighborhood the feminine tipplers of her own class now related
that she drank to console herself for her daughter's misconduct. She
herself, when she gulped down her dram of spirits on the counter,
assumed a dramatic air, and tossed the liquor into her mouth, wishing
it would "do" for her. And on the days when she came home boozed she
stammered that it was all through grief. But honest folks shrugged
their shoulders. They knew what that meant: ascribing the effects of
the peppery fire of l'Assommoir to grief, indeed! At all events, she
ought to have called it bottled grief. No doubt at the beginning she
couldn't digest Nana's flight. All the honest feelings remaining in
her revolted at the thought, and besides, as a rule a mother doesn't
like to have to think that her daughter, at that very moment, perhaps,
is being familiarly addressed by the first chance comer. But Gervaise
was already too stultified with a sick head and a crushed heart, to
think of the shame for long. With her it came and went. She remained
sometimes for a week together without thinking of her daughter, and
then suddenly a tender or an angry feeling seized hold of her,
sometimes when she had her stomach empty, at others when it was full,
a furious longing to catch Nana in some corner, where she would
perhaps have kissed her or perhaps have beaten her, according to the
fancy of the moment.

Whenever these thoughts came over her, Gervaise looked on all sides in
the streets with the eyes of a detective. Ah! if she had only seen her
little sinner, how quickly she would have brought her home again! The
neighborhood was being turned topsy-turvy that year. The Boulevard
Magenta and the Boulevard Ornano were being pierced; they were doing
away with the old Barriere Poissonniere and cutting right through the
outer Boulevard. The district could not be recognized. The whole of
one side of the Rue des Poissonniers had been pulled down. From the
Rue de la Goutte-d'Or a large clearing could now be seen, a dash of
sunlight and open air; and in place of the gloomy buildings which had
hidden the view in this direction there rose up on the Boulevard
Ornano a perfect monument, a six-storied house, carved all over like a
church, with clear windows, which, with their embroidered curtains,
seemed symbolical of wealth. This white house, standing just in front
of the street, illuminated it with a jet of light, as it were, and
every day it caused discussions between Lantier and Poisson.

Gervaise had several times had tidings of Nana. There are always ready
tongues anxious to pay you a sorry compliment. Yes, she had been told
that the hussy had left her old gentleman, just like the inexperienced
girl she was. She had gotten along famously with him, petted, adored,
and free, too, if she had only known how to manage the situation. But
youth is foolish, and she had no doubt gone off with some young rake,
no one knew exactly where. What seemed certain was that one afternoon
she had left her old fellow on the Place de la Bastille, just for half
a minute, and he was still waiting for her to return. Other persons
swore they had seen her since, dancing on her heels at the "Grand Hall
of Folly," in the Rue de la Chapelle. Then it was that Gervaise took
it into her head to frequent all the dancing places of the
neighborhood. She did not pass in front of a public ball-room without
going in. Coupeau accompanied her. At first they merely made the round
of the room, looking at the drabs who were jumping about. But one
evening, as they had some coin, they sat down and ordered a large bowl
of hot wine in view of regaling themselves and waiting to see if Nana
would turn up. At the end of a month or so they had practically
forgotten her, but they frequented the halls for their own pleasure,
liking to look at the dancers. They would remain for hours without
exchanging a word, resting their elbows on the table, stultified
amidst the quaking of the floor, and yet no doubt amusing themselves
as they stared with pale eyes at the Barriere women in the stifling
atmosphere and ruddy glow of the hall.

It happened one November evening that they went into the "Grand Hall
of Folly" to warm themselves. Out of doors a sharp wind cut you across
the face. But the hall was crammed. There was a thundering big swarm
inside; people at all the tables, people in the middle, people up
above, quite an amount of flesh. Yes, those who cared for tripes could
enjoy themselves. When they had made the round twice without finding a
vacant table, they decided to remain standing and wait till somebody
went off. Coupeau was teetering on his legs, in a dirty blouse, with
an old cloth cap which had lost its peak flattened down on his head.
And as he blocked the way, he saw a scraggy young fellow who was
wiping his coat-sleeve after elbowing him.

"Say!" cried Coupeau in a fury, as he took his pipe out of his black
mouth. "Can't you apologize? And you play the disgusted one? Just
because a fellow wears a blouse!"

The young man turned round and looked at the zinc-worker from head to
foot.

"I'll just teach you, you scraggy young scamp," continued Coupeau,
"that the blouse is the finest garment out; yes! the garment of work.
I'll wipe you if you like with my fists. Did one ever hear of such a
thing--a ne'er-do-well insulting a workman!"

Gervaise tried to calm him, but in vain. He drew himself up in his
rags, in full view, and struck his blouse, roaring: "There's a man's
chest under that!"

Thereupon the young man dived into the midst of the crowd, muttering:
"What a dirty blackguard!"

Coupeau wanted to follow and catch him. He wasn't going to let himself
be insulted by a fellow with a coat on. Probably it wasn't even paid
for! Some second-hand toggery to impress a girl with, without having
to fork out a centime. If he caught the chap again, he'd bring him
down on his knees and make him bow to the blouse. But the crush was
too great; there was no means of walking. He and Gervaise turned
slowly round the dancers; there were three rows of sightseers packed
close together, whose faces lighted up whenever any of the dancers
showed off. As Coupeau and Gervaise were both short, they raised
themselves up on tiptoe, trying to see something besides the chignons
and hats that were bobbing about. The cracked brass instruments of the
orchestra were furiously thundering a quadrille, a perfect tempest
which made the hall shake; while the dancers, striking the floor with
their feet, raised a cloud of dust which dimmed the brightness of the
gas. The heat was unbearable.

"Look there," said Gervaise suddenly.

"Look at what?"

"Why, at that velvet hat over there."

They raised themselves up on tiptoe. On the left hand there was an old
black velvet hat trimmed with ragged feathers bobbing about--regular
hearse's plumes. It was dancing a devil of a dance, this hat--bouncing
and whirling round, diving down and then springing up again. Coupeau
and Gervaise lost sight of it as the people round about moved their
heads, but then suddenly they saw it again, swaying farther off with
such droll effrontery that folks laughed merely at the sight of this
dancing hat, without knowing what was underneath it.

"Well?" asked Coupeau.

"Don't you recognize that head of hair?" muttered Gervaise in a
stifled voice. "May my head be cut off if it isn't her."

With one shove the zinc-worker made his way through the crowd. /Mon
Dieu!/ yes, it was Nana! And in a nice pickle too! She had nothing on
her back but an old silk dress, all stained and sticky from having
wiped the tables of boozing dens, and with its flounces so torn that
they fell in tatters round about. Not even a bit of a shawl over her
shoulders. And to think that the hussy had had such an attentive,
loving gentleman, and had yet fallen to this condition, merely for the
sake of following some rascal who had beaten her, no doubt!
Nevertheless she had remained fresh and insolent, with her hair as
frizzy as a poodle's, and her mouth bright pink under that rascally
hat of hers.

"Just wait a bit, I'll make her dance!" resumed Coupeau.

Naturally enough, Nana was not on her guard. You should have seen how
she wriggled about! She twisted to the right and to the left, bending
double as if she were going to break herself in two, and kicking her
feet as high as her partner's face. A circle had formed about her and
this excited her even more. She raised her skirts to her knees and
really let herself go in a wild dance, whirling and turning, dropping
to the floor in splits, and then jigging and bouncing.

Coupeau was trying to force his way through the dancers and was
disrupting the quadrille.

"I tell you, it's my daughter!" he cried; "let me pass."

Nana was now dancing backwards, sweeping the floor with her flounces,
rounding her figure and wriggling it, so as to look all the more
tempting. She suddenly received a masterly blow just on the right
cheek. She raised herself up and turned quite pale on recognizing her
father and mother. Bad luck and no mistake.

"Turn him out!" howled the dancers.

But Coupeau, who had just recognized his daughter's cavalier as the
scraggy young man in the coat, did not care a fig for what the people
said.

"Yes, it's us," he roared. "Eh? You didn't expect it. So we catch you
here, and with a whipper-snapper, too, who insulted me a little while
ago!"

Gervaise, whose teeth were tight set, pushed him aside, exclaiming,
"Shut up. There's no need of so much explanation."

And, stepping forward, she dealt Nana a couple of hearty cuffs. The
first knocked the feathered hat on one side, and the second left a red
mark on the girl's white cheek. Nana was too stupefied either to cry
or resist. The orchestra continued playing, the crowd grew angry and
repeated savagely, "Turn them out! Turn them out!"

"Come, make haste!" resumed Gervaise. "Just walk in front, and don't
try to run off. You shall sleep in prison if you do."

The scraggy young man had prudently disappeared. Nana walked ahead,
very stiff and still stupefied by her bad luck. Whenever she showed
the lest unwillingness, a cuff from behind brought her back to the
direction of the door. And thus they went out, all three of them, amid
the jeers and banter of the spectators, whilst the orchestra finished
playing the finale with such thunder that the trombones seemed to be
spitting bullets.

The old life began again. After sleeping for twelve hours in her
closet, Nana behaved very well for a week or so. She had patched
herself a modest little dress, and wore a cap with the strings tied
under her chignon. Seized indeed with remarkable fervor, she declared
she would work at home, where one could earn what one liked without
hearing any nasty work-room talk; and she procured some work and
installed herself at a table, getting up at five o'clock in the
morning on the first few days to roll her sprigs of violets. But when
she had delivered a few gross, she stretched her arms and yawned over
her work, with her hands cramped, for she had lost her knack of stem-
rolling, and suffocated, shut up like this at home after allowing
herself so much open air freedom during the last six months. Then the
glue dried, the petals and the green paper got stained with grease,
and the flower-dealer came three times in person to make a row and
claim his spoiled materials.

Nana idled along, constantly getting a hiding from her father, and
wrangling with her mother morning and night--quarrels in which the two
women flung horrible words at each other's head. It couldn't last; the
twelfth day she took herself off, with no more luggage than her modest
dress on her back and her cap perched over one ear. The Lorilleuxs,
who had pursed their lips on hearing of her return and repentance,
nearly died of laughter now. Second performance, eclipse number two,
all aboard for the train for Saint-Lazare, the prison-hospital for
streetwalkers! No, it was really too comical. Nana took herself off in
such an amusing style. Well, if the Coupeaus wanted to keep her in the
future, they must shut her up in a cage.

In the presence of other people the Coupeaus pretended they were very
glad to be rid of the girl, though in reality they were enraged.
However, rage can't last forever, and soon they heard without even
blinking that Nana was seen in the neighborhood. Gervaise, who accused
her of doing it to enrage them, set herself above the scandal; she
might meet her daughter on the street, she said; she wouldn't even
dirty her hand to cuff her; yes, it was all over; she might have seen
her lying in the gutter, dying on the pavement, and she would have
passed by without even admitting that such a hussy was her own child.

Nana meanwhile was enlivening the dancing halls of the neighborhood.
She was known from the "Ball of Queen Blanche" to the "Great Hall of
Folly." When she entered the "Elysee-Montmartre," folks climbed onto
the tables to see her do the "sniffling crawfish" during the
pastourelle. As she had twice been turned out of the "Chateau Rouge"
hall, she walked outside the door waiting for someone she knew to
escort her inside. The "Black Ball" on the outer Boulevard and the
"Grand Turk" in the Rue des Poissonniers, were respectable places
where she only went when she had some fine dress on. Of all the
jumping places of the neighborhood, however, those she most preferred
were the "Hermitage Ball" in a damp courtyard and "Robert's Ball" in
the Impasse du Cadran, two dirty little halls, lighted up with a half
dozen oil lamps, and kept very informally, everyone pleased and
everyone free, so much so that the men and their girls kissed each
other at their ease, in the dances, without being disturbed. Nana had
ups and downs, perfect transformations, now tricked out like a stylish
woman and now all dirt. Ah! she had a fine life.

On several occasions the Coupeaus fancied they saw her in some shady
dive. They turned their backs and decamped in another direction so as
not to be obliged to recognize her. They didn't care to be laughed at
by a whole dancing hall again for the sake of bringing such a dolt
home. One night as they were going to bed, however, someone knocked at
the door. It was Nana who matter-of-factly came to ask for a bed; and
in what a state. /Mon Dieu!/ her head was bare, her dress in tatters,
and her boots full of holes--such a toilet as might have led the
police to run her in, and take her off to the Depot. Naturally enough
she received a hiding, and then she gluttonously fell on a crust of
stale bread and went to sleep, worn out, with the last mouthful
between her teeth.

Then this sort of life continued. As soon as she was somewhat
recovered she would go off and not a sight or sound of her. Weeks or
months would pass and she would suddenly appear with no explanation.
The Coupeaus got used to these comings and goings. Well, as long as
she didn't leave the door open. What could you expect?

There was only one thing that really bothered Gervaise. This was to
see her daughter come home in a dress with a train and a hat covered
with feathers. No, she couldn't stomach this display. Nana might
indulge in riotous living if she chose, but when she came home to her
mother's she ought to dress like a workgirl. The dresses with trains
caused quite a sensation in the house; the Lorilleuxs sneered;
Lantier, whose mouth sneered, turned the girl round to sniff at her
delicious aroma; the Boches had forbidden Pauline to associate with
this baggage in her frippery. And Gervaise was also angered by Nana's
exhausted slumber, when after one of her adventures, she slept till
noon, with her chignon undone and still full of hair pins, looking so
white and breathing so feebly that she seemed to be dead. Her mother
shook her five or six times in the course of the morning, threatening
to throw a jugful of water over her. The sight of this handsome lazy
girl, half naked and besotted with wine, exasperated her, as she saw
her lying there. Sometimes Nana opened an eye, closed it again, and
then stretched herself out all the more.

One day after reproaching her with the life she led and asking her if
she had taken on an entire battalion of soldiers, Gervaise put her
threat into execution to the extent of shaking her dripping hand over
Nana's body. Quite infuriated, the girl pulled herself up in the
sheet, and cried out:

"That's enough, mamma. It would be better not to talk of men. You did
as you liked, and now I do the same!"

"What! What!" stammered the mother.

"Yes, I never spoke to you about it, for it didn't concern me; but you
didn't used to be very fussy. I often saw you when we lived at the
shop sneaking off as soon as papa started snoring. So just shut up;
you shouldn't have set me the example."

Gervaise remained pale, with trembling hands, turning round without
knowing what she was about, whilst Nana, flattened on her breast,
embraced her pillow with both arms and subsided into the torpor of her
leaden slumber.

Coupeau growled, no longer sane enough to think of launching out a
whack. He was altogether losing his mind. And really there was no need
to call him an unprincipled father, for liquor had deprived him of all
consciousness of good and evil.

Now it was a settled thing. He wasn't sober once in six months; then
he was laid up and had to go into the Sainte-Anne hospital; a pleasure
trip for him. The Lorilleuxs said that the Duke of Bowel-Twister had
gone to visit his estates. At the end of a few weeks he left the
asylum, repaired and set together again, and then he began to pull
himself to bits once more, till he was down on his back and needed
another mending. In three years he went seven times to Sainte-Anne in
this fashion. The neighborhood said that his cell was kept ready for
him. But the worst of the matter was that this obstinate tippler
demolished himself more and more each time so that from relapse to
relapse one could foresee the final tumble, the last cracking of this
shaky cask, all the hoops of which were breaking away, one after the
other.

At the same time, he forgot to improve in appearance; a perfect ghost
to look at! The poison was having terrible effects. By dint of
imbibing alcohol, his body shrunk up like the embryos displayed in
glass jars in chemical laboratories. When he approached a window you
could see through his ribs, so skinny had he become. Those who knew
his age, only forty years just gone, shuddered when he passed by, bent
and unsteady, looking as old as the streets themselves. And the
trembling of his hands increased, the right one danced to such an
extent, that sometimes he had to take his glass between both fists to
carry it to his lips. Oh! that cursed trembling! It was the only thing
that worried his addled brains. You could hear him growling ferocious
insults against those hands of his.

This last summer, during which Nana usually came home to spend her
nights, after she had finished knocking about, was especially bad for
Coupeau. His voice changed entirely as if liquor had set a new music
in his throat. He became deaf in one ear. Then in a few days his sight
grew dim, and he had to clutch hold of the stair railings to prevent
himself from falling. As for his health, he had abominable headaches
and dizziness. All on a sudden he was seized with acute pains in his
arms and legs; he turned pale; was obliged to sit down, and remained
on a chair witless for hours; indeed, after one such attack, his arm
remained paralyzed for the whole day. He took to his bed several
times; he rolled himself up and hid himself under the sheet, breathing
hard and continuously like a suffering animal. Then the strange scenes
of Sainte-Anne began again. Suspicious and nervous, worried with a
burning fever, he rolled about in a mad rage, tearing his blouse and
biting the furniture with his convulsed jaws; or else he sank into a
great state of emotion, complaining like a child, sobbing and
lamenting because nobody loved him. One night when Gervaise and Nana
returned home together they were surprised not to find him in his bed.
He had laid the bolster in his place. And when they discovered him,
hiding between the bed and the wall, his teeth were chattering, and he
related that some men had come to murder him. The two women were
obliged to put him to bed again and quiet him like a child.

Coupeau knew only one remedy, to toss down a pint of spirits; a whack
in his stomach, which set him on his feet again. This was how he
doctored his gripes of a morning. His memory had left him long ago,
his brain was empty; and he no sooner found himself on his feet than
he poked fun at illness. He had never been ill. Yes, he had got to the
point when a fellow kicks the bucket declaring that he's quite well.
And his wits were going a-wool-gathering in other respects too. When
Nana came home after gadding about for six weeks or so he seemed to
fancy she had returned from doing some errand in the neighborhood.
Often when she was hanging on an acquaintance's arm she met him and
laughed at him without his recognizing her. In short, he no longer
counted for anything; she might have sat down on him if she had been
at a loss for a chair.

When the first frosts came Nana took herself off once more under the
pretence of going to the fruiterer's to see if there were any baked
pears. She scented winter and didn't care to let her teeth chatter in
front of the fireless stove. The Coupeaus had called her no good
because they had waited for the pears. No doubt she would come back
again. The other winter she had stayed away three weeks to fetch her
father two sous' worth of tobacco. But the months went by and the girl
did not show herself. This time she must have indulged in a hard
gallop. When June arrived she did not even turn up with the sunshine.
Evidently it was all over, she had found a new meal ticket somewhere
or other. One day when the Coupeaus were totally broke they sold
Nana's iron bedstead for six francs, which they drank together at
Saint-Ouen. The bedstead had been in their way.

One morning in July Virginie called to Gervaise, who was passing by,
and asked her to lend a hand in washing up, for Lantier had
entertained a couple of friends on the day before. And while Gervaise
was cleaning up the plates and dishes, greasy with the traces of the
spread, the hatter, who was still digesting in the shop, suddenly
called out:

"Say, I saw Nana the other day."

Virginie, who was seated at the counter looking very careworn in front
of the jars and drawers which were already three parts emptied, jerked
her head furiously. She restrained herself so as not to say too much,
but really it was angering her. Lantier was seeing Nana often. Oh! she
was by no means sure of him; he was a man to do much worse than that,
when a fancy for a woman came into his head. Madame Lerat, very
intimate just then with Virginie, who confided in her, had that moment
entered the shop, and hearing Lantier's remark, she pouted
ridiculously, and asked:

"What do you mean, you saw her?"

"Oh, in the street here," answered the hatter, who felt highly
flattered, and began to laugh and twirl his moustaches. "She was in a
carriage and I was floundering on the pavement. Really it was so, I
swear it! There's no use denying it, the young fellows of position who
are on friendly terms with her are terribly lucky!"

His eyes had brightened and he turned towards Gervaise who was
standing in the rear of the shop wiping a dish.

"Yes, she was in a carriage, and wore such a stylish dress! I didn't
recognise her, she looked so much like a lady of the upper set, with
her white teeth and her face as fresh as a flower. It was she who
waved her glove to me. She has caught a count, I believe. Oh! she's
launched for good. She can afford to do without any of us; she's head
over heels in happiness, the little beggar! What a love of a little
kitten! No, you've no idea what a little kitten she is!"

Gervaise was still wiping the same plate, although it had long since
been clean and shiny. Virginie was reflecting, anxious about a couple
of bills which fell due on the morrow and which she didn't know how to
pay; whilst Lantier, stout and fat, perspiring the sugar he fed off,
ventured his enthusiasm for well-dressed little hussies. The shop,
which was already three parts eaten up, smelt of ruin. Yes, there were
only a few more burnt almonds to nibble, a little more barley-sugar to
suck, to clean the Poissons' business out. Suddenly, on the pavement
over the way, he perceived the policeman, who was on duty, pass by all
buttoned up with his sword dangling by his side. And this made him all
the gayer. He compelled Virginie to look at her husband.

"Dear me," he muttered, "Badingue looks fine this morning! Just look,
see how stiff he walks. He must have stuck a glass eye in his back to
surprise people."

When Gervaise went back upstairs, she found Coupeau seated on the bed,
in the torpid state induced by one of his attacks. He was looking at
the window-panes with his dim expressionless eyes. She sat herself
down on a chair, tired out, her hands hanging beside her dirty skirt;
and for a quarter of an hour she remained in front of him without
saying a word.

"I've had some news," she muttered at last. "Your daughter's been
seen. Yes, your daughter's precious stylish and hasn't any more need
of you. She's awfully happy, she is! Ah! /Mon Dieu!/ I'd give a great
deal to be in her place."

Coupeau was still staring at the window-pane. But suddenly he raised
his ravaged face, and stammered with an idiotic laugh:

"Well, my little lamb, I'm not stopping you. You're not yet so bad
looking when you wash yourself. As folks say, however old a pot may
be, it ends by finding its lid. And, after all, I wouldn't care if it
only buttered our bread."



                             CHAPTER XII

It must have been the Saturday after quarter day, something like the
12th or 13th of January--Gervaise didn't quite know. She was losing
her wits, for it was centuries since she had had anything warm in her
stomach. Ah! what an infernal week! A complete clear out. Two loaves
of four pounds each on Tuesday, which had lasted till Thursday; then a
dry crust found the night before, and finally not a crumb for thirty-
six hours, a real dance before the cupboard! What did she know, by the
way, what she felt on her back, was the frightful cold, a black cold,
the sky as grimy as a frying-pan, thick with snow which obstinately
refused to fall. When winter and hunger are both together in your
guts, you may tighten your belt as much as you like, it hardly feeds
you.

Perhaps Coupeau would bring back some money in the evening. He said
that he was working. Anything is possible, isn't it? And Gervaise,
although she had been caught many and many a time, had ended by
relying on this coin. After all sorts of incidents, she herself
couldn't find as much as a duster to wash in the whole neighborhood;
and even an old lady, whose rooms she did, had just given her the
sack, charging her with swilling her liqueurs. No one would engage
her, she was washed up everywhere; and this secretly suited her, for
she had fallen to that state of indifference when one prefers to croak
rather than move one's fingers. At all events, if Coupeau brought his
pay home they would have something warm to eat. And meanwhile, as it
wasn't yet noon, she remained stretched on the mattress, for one
doesn't feel so cold or so hungry when one is lying down.

The bed was nothing but a pile of straw in a corner. Bed and bedding
had gone, piece by piece, to the second-hand dealers of the
neighborhood. First she had ripped open the mattress to sell handfuls
of wool at ten sous a pound. When the mattress was empty she got
thirty sous for the sack so as to be able to have coffee. Everything
else had followed. Well, wasn't the straw good enough for them?

Gervaise bent herself like a gun-trigger on the heap of straw, with
her clothes on and her feet drawn up under her rag of a skirt, so as
to keep them warm. And huddled up, with her eyes wide open, she turned
some scarcely amusing ideas over in her mind that morning. Ah! no,
they couldn't continue living without food. She no longer felt her
hunger, only she had a leaden weight on her chest and her brain seemed
empty. Certainly there was nothing gay to look at in the four corners
of the hovel. A perfect kennel now, where greyhounds, who wear
wrappers in the streets, would not even have lived in effigy. Her pale
eyes stared at the bare walls. Everything had long since gone to
"uncle's." All that remained were the chest of drawers, the table and
a chair. Even the marble top of the chest of drawers and the drawers
themselves, had evaporated in the same direction as the bedstead. A
fire could not have cleaned them out more completely; the little
knick-knacks had melted, beginning with the ticker, a twelve franc
watch, down to the family photos, the frames of which had been bought
by a woman keeping a second-hand store; a very obliging woman, by the
way, to whom Gervaise carried a saucepan, an iron, a comb and who gave
her five, three or two sous in exchange, according to the article;
enough, at all events to go upstairs again with a bit of bread. But
now there only remained a broken pair of candle snuffers, which the
woman refused to give her even a sou for.

Oh! if she could only have sold the rubbish and refuse, the dust and
the dirt, how speedily she would have opened shop, for the room was
filthy to behold! She only saw cobwebs in the corners and although
cobwebs are good for cuts, there are, so far, no merchants who buy
them. Then turning her head, abandoning the idea of doing a bit of
trade, Gervaise gathered herself together more closely on her straw,
preferring to stare through the window at the snow-laden sky, at the
dreary daylight, which froze the marrow in her bones.

What a lot of worry! Though, after all, what was the use of putting
herself in such a state and puzzling her brains? If she had only been
able to have a snooze. But her hole of a home wouldn't go out of her
mind. Monsieur Marescot, the landlord had come in person the day
before to tell them that he would turn them out into the street if the
two quarters' rent now overdue were not paid during the ensuing week.
Well, so he might, they certainly couldn't be worse off on the
pavement! Fancy this ape, in his overcoat and his woolen gloves,
coming upstairs to talk to them about rent, as if they had had a
treasure hidden somewhere!

Just the same with that brute of a Coupeau, who couldn't come home now
without beating her; she wished him in the same place as the landlord.
She sent them all there, wishing to rid herself of everyone, and of
life too. She was becoming a real storehouse for blows. Coupeau had a
cudgel, which he called his ass's fan, and he fanned his old woman.
You should just have seen him giving her abominable thrashings, which
made her perspire all over. She was no better herself, for she bit and
scratched him. Then they stamped about in the empty room and gave each
other such drubbings as were likely to ease them of all taste for
bread for good. But Gervaise ended by not caring a fig for these
thwacks, not more than she did for anything else. Coupeau might
celebrate Saint Monday for weeks altogether, go off on the spree for
months at a time, come home mad with liquor, and seek to sharpen her
as he said, she had grown accustomed to it, she thought him tiresome,
but nothing more. It was on these occasions that she wished him
somewhere else. Yes, somewhere, her beast of a man and the Lorilleuxs,
the Boches, and the Poissons too; in fact, the whole neighborhood,
which she had such contempt for. She sent all Paris there with a
gesture of supreme carelessness, and was pleased to be able to revenge
herself in this style.

One could get used to almost anything, but still, it is hard to break
the habit of eating. That was the one thing that really annoyed
Gervaise, the hunger that kept gnawing at her insides. Oh, those
pleasant little snacks she used to have. Now she had fallen low enough
to gobble anything she could find.

On special occasions, she would get waste scraps of meat from the
butcher for four sous a pound. Blacked and dried out meat that
couldn't find a purchaser. She would mix this with potatoes for a
stew. On other occasions, when she had some wine, she treated herself
to a sop, a true parrot's pottage. Two sous' worth of Italian cheese,
bushels of white potatoes, quarts of dry beans, cooked in their own
juice, these also were dainties she was not often able to indulge in
now. She came down to leavings from low eating dens, where for a sou
she had a pile of fish-bones, mixed with the parings of moldy roast
meat. She fell even lower--she begged a charitable eating-house keeper
to give her his customers' dry crusts, and she made herself a bread
soup, letting the crusts simmer as long as possible on a neighbor's
fire. On the days when she was really hungry, she searched about with
the dogs, to see what might be lying outside the tradespeople's doors
before the dustmen went by; and thus at times she came across rich
men's food, rotten melons, stinking mackerel and chops, which she
carefully inspected for fear of maggots.

Yes, she had come to this. The idea may be a repugnant one to
delicate-minded folks, but if they hadn't chewed anything for three
days running, we should hardly see them quarreling with their
stomachs; they would go down on all fours and eat filth like other
people. Ah! the death of the poor, the empty entrails, howling hunger,
the animal appetite that leads one with chattering teeth to fill one's
stomach with beastly refuse in this great Paris, so bright and golden!
And to think that Gervaise used to fill her belly with fat goose! Now
the thought of it brought tears to her eyes. One day, when Coupeau
bagged two bread tickets from her to go and sell them and get some
liquor, she nearly killed him with the blow of a shovel, so hungered
and so enraged was she by this theft of a bit of bread.

However, after a long contemplation of the pale sky, she had fallen
into a painful doze. She dreamt that the snow-laden sky was falling on
her, so cruelly did the cold pinch. Suddenly she sprang to her feet,
awakened with a start by a shudder of anguish. /Mon Dieu!/ was she
going to die? Shivering and haggard she perceived that it was still
daylight. Wouldn't the night ever come? How long the time seems when
the stomach is empty! Hers was waking up in its turn and beginning to
torture her. Sinking down on the chair, with her head bent and her
hands between her legs to warm them, she began to think what they
would have for dinner as soon as Coupeau brought the money home: a
loaf, a quart of wine and two platefuls of tripe in the Lyonnaise
fashion. Three o'clock struck by father Bazouge's clock. Yes, it was
only three o'clock. Then she began to cry. She would never have
strength enough to wait until seven. Her body swayed backwards and
forwards, she oscillated like a child nursing some sharp pain, bending
herself double and crushing her stomach so as not to feel it. Ah! an
accouchement is less painful than hunger! And unable to ease herself,
seized with rage, she rose and stamped about, hoping to send her
hunger to sleep by walking it to and fro like an infant. For half an
hour or so, she knocked against the four corners of the empty room.
Then, suddenly, she paused with a fixed stare. So much the worse! They
might say what they liked; she would lick their feet if needs be, but
she would go and ask the Lorilleuxs to lend her ten sous.

At winter time, up these stairs of the house, the paupers' stairs,
there was a constant borrowing of ten sous and twenty sous, petty
services which these hungry beggars rendered each other. Only they
would rather have died than have applied to the Lorilleuxs, for they
knew they were too tight-fisted. Thus Gervaise displayed remarkable
courage in going to knock at their door. She felt so frightened in the
passage that she experienced the sudden relief of people who ring a
dentist's bell.

"Come in!" cried the chainmaker in a sour voice.

How warm and nice it was inside. The forge was blazing, its white
flame lighting up the narrow workroom, whilst Madame Lorilleux set a
coil of gold wire to heat. Lorilleux, in front of his worktable, was
perspiring with the warmth as he soldered the links of a chain
together. And it smelt nice. Some cabbage soup was simmering on the
stove, exhaling a steam which turned Gervaise's heart topsy-turvy, and
almost made her faint.

"Ah! it's you," growled Madame Lorilleux, without even asking her to
sit down. "What do you want?"

Gervaise did not answer for a moment. She had recently been on fairly
good terms with the Lorilleuxs, but she saw Boche sitting by the
stove. He seemed very much at home, telling funny stories.

"What do you want?" repeated Lorilleux.

"You haven't seen Coupeau?" Gervaise finally stammered at last. "I
thought he was here."

The chainmakers and the concierge sneered. No, for certain, they
hadn't seen Coupeau. They didn't stand treat often enough to interest
Coupeau. Gervaise made an effort and resumed, stuttering:

"It's because he promised to come home. Yes, he's to bring me some
money. And as I have absolute need of something--"

Silence followed. Madame Lorilleux was roughly fanning the fire of the
stove; Lorilleux had lowered his nose over the bit of chain between
his fingers, while Boche continued laughing, puffing out his face till
it looked like the full moon.

"If I only had ten sous," muttered Gervaise, in a low voice.

The silence persisted.

"Couldn't you lend me ten sous? Oh! I would return them to you this
evening!"

Madame Lorilleux turned round and stared at her. Here was a wheedler
trying to get round them. To-day she asked them for ten sous,
to-morrow it would be for twenty, and there would be no reason to
stop. No, indeed; it would be a warm day in winter if they lent her
anything.

"But, my dear," cried Madame Lorilleux. "You know very well that we
haven't any money! Look! There's the lining of my pocket. You can
search us. If we could, it would be with a willing heart, of course."

"The heart's always there," growled Lorilleux. "Only when one can't,
one can't."

Gervaise looked very humble and nodded her head approvingly. However,
she did not take herself off. She squinted at the gold, at the gold
tied together hanging on the walls, at the gold wire the wife was
drawing out with all the strength of her little arms, at the gold
links lying in a heap under the husband's knotty fingers. And she
thought that the least bit of this ugly black metal would suffice to
buy her a good dinner. The workroom was as dirty as ever, full of old
iron, coal dust and sticky oil stains, half wiped away; but now, as
Gervaise saw it, it seemed resplendent with treasure, like a money
changer's shop. And so she ventured to repeat softly: "I would return
them to you, return them without fail. Ten sous wouldn't inconvenience
you."

Her heart was swelling with the effort she made not to own that she
had had nothing to eat since the day before. Then she felt her legs
give way. She was frightened that she might burst into tears, and she
still stammered:

"It would be kind of you! You don't know. Yes, I'm reduced to that,
good Lord--reduced to that!"

Thereupon the Lorilleuxs pursed their lips and exchanged covert
glances. So Clump-clump was begging now! Well, the fall was complete.
But they did not care for that kind of thing by any means. If they had
known, they would have barricaded the door, for people should always
be on their guard against beggars--folks who make their way into
apartments under a pretext and carry precious objects away with them;
and especially so in this place, as there was something worth while
stealing. One might lay one's fingers no matter where, and carry off
thirty or forty francs by merely closing the hands. They had felt
suspicious several times already on noticing how strange Gervaise
looked when she stuck herself in front of the gold. This time,
however, they meant to watch her. And as she approached nearer, with
her feet on the board, the chainmaker roughly called out, without
giving any further answer to her question: "Look out, pest--take care;
you'll be carrying some scraps of gold away on the soles of your
shoes. One would think you had greased them on purpose to make the
gold stick to them."

Gervaise slowly drew back. For a moment she leant against a rack, and
seeing that Madame Lorilleux was looking at her hands, she opened them
and showed them, saying softly, without the least anger, like a fallen
women who accepts anything:

"I have taken nothing; you can look."

And then she went off, because the strong smell of the cabbage soup
and the warmth of the workroom made her feel too ill.

Ah! the Lorilleuxs did not detain her. Good riddance; just see if they
opened the door to her again. They had seen enough of her face. They
didn't want other people's misery in their rooms, especially when that
misery was so well deserved. They reveled in their selfish delight at
being seated so cozily in a warm room, with a dainty soup cooking.
Boche also stretched himself, puffing with his cheeks still more and
more, so much, indeed, that his laugh really became indecent. They
were all nicely revenged on Clump-clump, for her former manners, her
blue shop, her spreads, and all the rest. It had all worked out just
as it should, proving where a love of showing-off would get you.

"So that is the style now? Begging for ten sous," cried Madame
Lorilleux as soon as Gervaise had gone. "Wait a bit; I'll lend her ten
sous, and no mistake, to go and get drunk with."

Gervaise shuffled along the passage in her slippers, bending her back
and feeling heavy. On reaching her door she did not open it--her room
frightened her. It would be better to walk about, she would learn
patience. As she passed by she stretched out her neck, peering into
Pere Bru's kennel under the stairs. There, for instance, was another
one who must have a fine appetite, for he had breakfasted and dined by
heart during the last three days. However, he wasn't at home, there
was only his hole, and Gervaise felt somewhat jealous, thinking that
perhaps he had been invited somewhere. Then, as she reached the
Bijards' she heard Lalie moaning, and, as the key was in the lock as
usual, she opened the door and went in.

"What is the matter?" she asked.

The room was very clean. One could see that Lalie had carefully swept
it, and arranged everything during the morning. Misery might blow into
the room as much as it liked, carry off the chattels and spread all
the dirt and refuse about. Lalie, however, came behind and tidied
everything, imparting, at least, some appearance of comfort within.
She might not be rich, but you realized that there was a housewife in
the place. That afternoon her two little ones, Henriette and Jules,
had found some old pictures which they were cutting out in a corner.
But Gervaise was greatly surprised to see Lalie herself in bed,
looking very pale, with the sheet drawn up to her chin. In bed,
indeed, then she must be seriously ill!

"What is the matter with you?" inquired Gervaise, feeling anxious.

Lalie no longer groaned. She slowly raised her white eyelids, and
tried to compel her lips to smile, although they were convulsed by a
shudder.

"There's nothing the matter with me," she whispered very softly.
"Really nothing at all."

Then, closing her eyes again, she added with an effort:

"I made myself too tired during the last few days, and so I'm doing
the idle; I'm nursing myself, as you see."

But her childish face, streaked with livid stains, assumed such an
expression of anguish that Gervaise, forgetting her own agony, joined
her hands and fell on her knees near the bed. For the last month she
had seen the girl clinging to the walls for support when she went
about, bent double indeed, by a cough which seemed to presage a
coffin. Now the poor child could not even cough. She had a hiccough
and drops of blood oozed from the corners of her mouth.

"It's not my fault if I hardly feel strong," she murmured, as if
relieved. "I've tired myself to-day, trying to put things to rights.
It's pretty tidy, isn't it? And I wanted to clean the windows as well,
but my legs failed me. How stupid! However, when one has finished one
can go to bed."

She paused, then said, "Pray, see if my little ones are not cutting
themselves with the scissors."

And then she relapsed into silence, trembling and listening to a heavy
footfall which was approaching up the stairs. Suddenly father Bijard
brutally opened the door. As usual he was far gone, and his eyes shone
with the furious madness imparted by the vitriol he had swallowed.
When he perceived Lalie in bed, he tapped on his thighs with a sneer,
and took the whip from where it hung.

"Ah! by blazes, that's too much," he growled, "we'll soon have a
laugh. So the cows lie down on their straw at noon now! Are you poking
fun at me, you lazy beggar? Come, quick now, up you get!"

And he cracked the whip over the bed. But the child beggingly replied:

"Pray, papa, don't--don't strike me. I swear to you you will regret
it. Don't strike!"

"Will you jump up?" he roared still louder, "or else I'll tickle your
ribs! Jump up, you little hound!"

Then she softly said, "I can't--do you understand? I'm going to die."

Gervaise had sprung upon Bijard and torn the whip away from him. He
stood bewildered in front of the bed. What was the dirty brat talking
about? Do girls die so young without even having been ill? Some excuse
to get sugar out of him no doubt. Ah! he'd make inquiries, and if she
lied, let her look out!

"You will see, it's the truth," she continued. "As long as I could I
avoided worrying you; but be kind now, and bid me good-bye, papa."

Bijard wriggled his nose as if he fancied she was deceiving him. And
yet it was true she had a singular look, the serious mien of a grown
up person. The breath of death which passed through the room in some
measure sobered him. He gazed around like a man awakened from a long
sleep, saw the room so tidy, the two children clean, playing and
laughing. And then he sank on to a chair stammering, "Our little
mother, our little mother."

Those were the only words he could find to say, and yet they were very
tender ones to Lalie, who had never been much spoiled. She consoled
her father. What especially worried her was to go off like this
without having completely brought up the little ones. He would take
care of them, would he not? With her dying breath she told him how
they ought to be cared for and kept clean. But stultified, with the
fumes of drink seizing hold of him again, he wagged his head, watching
her with an uncertain stare as she was dying. All kind of things were
touched in him, but he could find no more to say and he was too
utterly burnt with liquor to shed a tear.

"Listen," resumed Lalie, after a pause. "We owe four francs and seven
sous to the baker; you must pay that. Madame Gaudron borrowed an iron
of ours, which you must get from her. I wasn't able to make any soup
this evening, but there's some bread left and you can warm up the
potatoes."

Till her last rattle, the poor kitten still remained the little
mother. Surely she could never be replaced! She was dying because she
had had, at her age, a true mother's reason, because her breast was
too small and weak for so much maternity. And if her ferocious beast
of a father lost his treasure, it was his own fault. After kicking the
mother to death, hadn't he murdered the daughter as well? The two good
angels would lie in the pauper's grave and all that could be in store
for him was to kick the bucket like a dog in the gutter.

Gervaise restrained herself not to burst out sobbing. She extended her
hands, desirous of easing the child, and as the shred of a sheet was
falling, she wished to tack it up and arrange the bed. Then the dying
girl's poor little body was seen. Ah! /Mon Dieu!/ what misery! What
woe! Stones would have wept. Lalie was bare, with only the remnants of
a camisole on her shoulders by way of chemise; yes, bare, with the
grievous, bleeding nudity of a martyr. She had no flesh left; her
bones seemed to protrude through the skin. From her ribs to her thighs
there extended a number of violet stripes--the marks of the whip
forcibly imprinted on her. A livid bruise, moreover, encircled her
left arm, as if the tender limb, scarcely larger than a lucifer, had
been crushed in a vise. There was also an imperfectly closed wound on
her right leg, left there by some ugly blow and which opened again and
again of a morning, when she went about doing her errands. From head
to foot, indeed, she was but one bruise! Oh! this murdering of
childhood; those heavy hands crushing this lovely girl; how abominable
that such weakness should have such a weighty cross to bear! Again did
Gervaise crouch down, no longer thinking of tucking in the sheet, but
overwhelmed by the pitiful sight of this martyrdom; and her trembling
lips seemed to be seeking for words of prayer.

"Madame Coupeau," murmured the child, "I beg you--"

With her little arms she tried to draw up the sheet again, ashamed as
it were for her father. Bijard, as stultified as ever, with his eyes
on the corpse which was his own work, still wagged his head, but more
slowly, like a worried animal might do.

When she had covered Lalie up again, Gervaise felt she could not
remain there any longer. The dying girl was growing weaker and ceased
speaking; all that was left to her was her gaze--the dark look she had
had as a resigned and thoughtful child and which she now fixed on her
two little ones who were still cutting out their pictures. The room
was growing gloomy and Bijard was working off his liquor while the
poor girl was in her death agonies. No, no, life was too abominable!
How frightful it was! How frightful! And Gervaise took herself off,
and went down the stairs, not knowing what she was doing, her head
wandering and so full of disgust that she would willingly have thrown
herself under the wheels of an omnibus to have finished with her own
existence.

As she hastened on, growling against cursed fate, she suddenly found
herself in front of the place where Coupeau pretended that he worked.
Her legs had taken her there, and now her stomach began singing its
song again, the complaint of hunger in ninety verses--a complaint she
knew by heart. However, if she caught Coupeau as he left, she would be
able to pounce upon the coin at once and buy some grub. A short hour's
waiting at the utmost; she could surely stay that out, though she had
sucked her thumbs since the day before.

She was at the corner of Rue de la Charbonniere and Rue de Chartres.
A chill wind was blowing and the sky was an ugly leaden grey. The
impending snow hung over the city but not a flake had fallen as yet.
She tried stamping her feet to keep warm, but soon stopped as there
was no use working up an appetite.

There was nothing amusing about. The few passers-by strode rapidly
along, wrapped up in comforters; naturally enough one does not care to
tarry when the cold is nipping at your heels. However, Gervaise
perceived four or five women who were mounting guard like herself
outside the door of the zinc-works; unfortunate creatures of course--
wives watching for the pay to prevent it going to the dram-shop. There
was a tall creature as bulky as a gendarme leaning against the wall,
ready to spring on her husband as soon as he showed himself. A dark
little woman with a delicate humble air was walking about on the other
side of the way. Another one, a fat creature, had brought her two
brats with her and was dragging them along, one on either hand, and
both of them shivering and sobbing. And all these women, Gervaise like
the others, passed and repassed, exchanging glances, but without
speaking to one another. A pleasant meeting and no mistake. They
didn't need to make friends to learn what number they lived at. They
could all hang out the same sideboard, "Misery & Co." It seemed to
make one feel even colder to see them walk about in silence, passing
each other in this terrible January weather.

However, nobody as yet left the zinc-works. But presently one workman
appeared, then two, and then three, but these were no doubt decent
fellows who took their pay home regularly, for they jerked their heads
significantly as they saw the shadows wandering up and down. The tall
creature stuck closer than ever to the side of the door, and suddenly
fell upon a pale little man who was prudently poking his head out. Oh!
it was soon settled! She searched him and collared his coin. Caught,
no more money, not even enough to pay for a dram! Then the little man,
looking very vexed and cast down, followed his gendarme, weeping like
a child. The workmen were still coming out; and as the fat mother with
the two brats approached the door, a tall fellow, with a cunning look,
who noticed her, went hastily inside again to warn her husband; and
when the latter arrived he had stuffed a couple of cart wheels away,
two beautiful new five franc pieces, one in each of his shoes. He took
one of the brats on his arm, and went off telling a variety of lies to
his old woman who was complaining. There were other workmen also,
mournful-looking fellows, who carried in their clinched fists the pay
for the three or five days' work they had done during a fortnight, who
reproached themselves with their own laziness, and took drunkards'
oaths. But the saddest thing of all was the grief of the dark little
woman, with the humble, delicate look; her husband, a handsome fellow,
took himself off under her very nose, and so brutally indeed that he
almost knocked her down, and she went home alone, stumbling past the
shops and weeping all the tears in her body.

At last the defile finished. Gervaise, who stood erect in the middle
of the street, was still watching the door. The look-out seemed a bad
one. A couple of workmen who were late appeared on the threshold, but
there were still no signs of Coupeau. And when she asked the workmen
if Coupeau wasn't coming, they answered her, being up to snuff, that
he had gone off by the back-door with Lantimeche. Gervaise understood
what this meant. Another of Coupeau's lies; she could whistle for him
if she liked. Then shuffling along in her worn-out shoes, she went
slowly down the Rue de la Charbonniere. Her dinner was going off in
front of her, and she shuddered as she saw it running away in the
yellow twilight. This time it was all over. Not a copper, not a hope,
nothing but night and hunger. Ah! a fine night to kick the bucket,
this dirty night which was falling over her shoulders!

She was walking heavily up the Rue des Poissonniers when she suddenly
heard Coupeau's voice. Yes, he was there in the Little Civet, letting
My-Boots treat him. That comical chap, My-Boots, had been cunning
enough at the end of last summer to espouse in authentic fashion a
lady who, although rather advanced in years, had still preserved
considerable traces of beauty. She was a lady-of-the-evening of the
Rue des Martyrs, none of your common street hussies. And you should
have seen this fortunate mortal, living like a man of means, with his
hands in his pockets, well clad and well fed. He could hardly be
recognised, so fat had he grown. His comrades said that his wife had
as much work as she liked among the gentlemen of her acquaintance. A
wife like that and a country-house is all one can wish for to
embellish one's life. And so Coupeau squinted admiringly at My-Boots.
Why, the lucky dog even had a gold ring on his little finger!

Gervaise touched Coupeau on the shoulder just as he was coming out of
the little Civet.

"Say, I'm waiting; I'm hungry! I've got an empty stomach which is all
I ever get from you."

But he silenced her in a capital style, "You're hungry, eh? Well, eat
your fist, and keep the other for to-morrow."

He considered it highly improper to do the dramatic in other people's
presence. What, he hadn't worked, and yet the bakers kneaded bread all
the same. Did she take him for a fool, to come and try to frighten him
with her stories?

"Do you want me to turn thief?" she muttered, in a dull voice.

My-Boots stroked his chin in conciliatory fashion. "No, that's
forbidden," said he. "But when a woman knows how to handle herself--"

And Coupeau interrupted him to call out "Bravo!" Yes, a woman always
ought to know how to handle herself, but his wife had always been a
helpless thing. It would be her fault if they died on the straw. Then
he relapsed into his admiration for My-Boots. How awfully fine he
looked! A regular landlord; with clean linen and swell shoes! They
were no common stuff! His wife, at all events, knew how to keep the
pot boiling!

The two men walked towards the outer Boulevard, and Gervaise followed
them. After a pause, she resumed, talking behind Coupeau's back: "I'm
hungry; you know, I relied on you. You must find me something to
nibble."

He did not answer, and she repeated, in a tone of despairing agony:
"Is that all I get from you?"

"/Mon Dieu!/ I've no coin," he roared, turning round in a fury. "Just
leave me alone, eh? Or else I'll hit you."

He was already raising his fist. She drew back, and seemed to make up
her mind. "All right, I'll leave you. I guess I can find a man."

The zinc-worker laughed at this. He pretended to make a joke of the
matter, and strengthened her purpose without seeming to do so. That
was a fine idea of hers, and no mistake! In the evening, by gaslight,
she might still hook a man. He recommended her to try the Capuchin
restaurant where one could dine very pleasantly in a small private
room. And, as she went off along the Boulevard, looking pale and
furious he called out to her: "Listen, bring me back some dessert. I
like cakes! And if your gentleman is well dressed, ask him for an old
overcoat. I could use one."

With these words ringing in her ears, Gervaise walked softly away. But
when she found herself alone in the midst of the crowd, she slackened
her pace. She was quite resolute. Between thieving and the other, well
she preferred the other; for at all events she wouldn't harm any one.
No doubt it wasn't proper. But what was proper and what was improper
was sorely muddled together in her brain. When you are dying of
hunger, you don't philosophize, you eat whatever bread turns up. She
had gone along as far as the Chaussee-Clignancourt. It seemed as if
the night would never come. However, she followed the Boulevards like
a lady who is taking a stroll before dinner. The neighborhood in which
she felt so ashamed, so greatly was it being embellished, was now full
of fresh air.

Lost in the crowd on the broad footway, walking past the little plane
trees, Gervaise felt alone and abandoned. The vistas of the avenues
seemed to empty her stomach all the more. And to think that among this
flood of people there were many in easy circumstances, and yet not a
Christian who could guess her position, and slip a ten sous piece into
her hand! Yes, it was too great and too beautiful; her head swam and
her legs tottered under this broad expanse of grey sky stretched over
so vast a space. The twilight had the dirty-yellowish tinge of
Parisian evenings, a tint that gives you a longing to die at once, so
ugly does street life seem. The horizon was growing indistinct,
assuming a mud-colored tinge as it were. Gervaise, who was already
weary, met all the workpeople returning home. At this hour of the day
the ladies in bonnets and the well-dressed gentlemen living in the new
houses mingled with the people, with the files of men and women still
pale from inhaling the tainted atmosphere of workshops and workrooms.
From the Boulevard Magenta and the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonniere, came
bands of people, rendered breathless by their uphill walk. As the
omnivans and the cabs rolled by less noiselessly among the vans and
trucks returning home empty at a gallop, an ever-increasing swarm of
blouses and blue vests covered the pavement. Commissionaires returned
with their crotchets on their backs. Two workmen took long strides
side by side, talking to each other in loud voices, with any amount of
gesticulation, but without looking at one another; others who were
alone in overcoats and caps walked along the curbstones with lowered
noses; others again came in parties of five or six, following each
other, with pale eyes and their hands in their pockets and not
exchanging a word. Some still had their pipes, which had gone out
between their teeth. Four masons poked their white faces out of the
windows of a cab which they had hired between them, and on the roof of
which their mortar-troughs rocked to and fro. House-painters were
swinging their pots; a zinc-worker was returning laden with a long
ladder, with which he almost poked people's eyes out; whilst a belated
plumber, with his box on his back, played the tune of "The Good King
Dagobert" on his little trumpet. Ah! the sad music, a fitting
accompaniment to the tread of the flock, the tread of the weary beasts
of burden.

Suddenly on raising her eyes she noticed the old Hotel Boncoeur in
front of her. After being an all-night cafe, which the police had
closed down, the little house was now abandoned; the shutters were
covered with posters, the lantern was broken, and the whole building
was rotting and crumbling away from top to bottom, with its smudgy
claret-colored paint, quite moldy. The stationer's and the
tobacconist's were still there. In the rear, over some low buildings,
you could see the leprous facades of several five-storied houses
rearing their tumble-down outlines against the sky. The "Grand
Balcony" dancing hall no longer existed; some sugar-cutting works,
which hissed continually, had been installed in the hall with the ten
flaming windows. And yet it was here, in this dirty den--the Hotel
Boncoeur--that the whole cursed life had commenced. Gervaise remained
looking at the window of the first floor, from which hung a broken
shutter, and recalled to mind her youth with Lantier, their first rows
and the ignoble way in which he had abandoned her. Never mind, she was
young then, and it all seemed gay to her, seen from a distance. Only
twenty years. /Mon Dieu!/ and yet she had fallen to street-walking.
Then the sight of the lodging house oppressed her and she walked up
the Boulevard in the direction of Montmartre.

The night was gathering, but children were still playing on the heaps
of sand between the benches. The march past continued, the workgirls
went by, trotting along and hurrying to make up for the time they had
lost in looking in at the shop windows; one tall girl, who had
stopped, left her hand in that of a big fellow, who accompanied her to
within three doors of her home; others as they parted from each other,
made appointments for the night at the "Great Hall of Folly" or the
"Black Ball." In the midst of the groups, piece-workmen went by,
carrying their clothes folded under their arms. A chimney sweep,
harnessed with leather braces, was drawing a cart along, and nearly
got himself crushed by an omnibus. Among the crowd which was now
growing scantier, there were several women running with bare heads;
after lighting the fire, they had come downstairs again and were
hastily making their purchases for dinner; they jostled the people
they met, darted into the bakers' and the pork butchers', and went off
again with all despatch, their provisions in their hands. There were
little girls of eight years old, who had been sent out on errands, and
who went along past the shops, pressing long loaves of four pounds'
weight, as tall as they were themselves, against their chests, as if
these loaves had been beautiful yellow dolls; at times these little
ones forgot themselves for five minutes or so, in front of some
pictures in a shop window, and rested their cheeks against the bread.
Then the flow subsided, the groups became fewer and farther between,
the working classes had gone home; and as the gas blazed now that the
day's toil was over, idleness and amusement seemed to wake up.

Ah! yes; Gervaise had finished her day! She was wearier even than all
this mob of toilers who had jostled her as they went by. She might lie
down there and croak, for work would have nothing more to do with her,
and she had toiled enough during her life to say: "Whose turn now?
I've had enough." At present everyone was eating. It was really the
end, the sun had blown out its candle, the night would be a long one.
/Mon Dieu!/ To stretch one's self at one's ease and never get up
again; to think one had put one's tools by for good and that one could
ruminate like a cow forever! That's what is good, after tiring one's
self out for twenty years! And Gervaise, as hunger twisted her
stomach, thought in spite of herself of the fete days, the spreads and
the revelry of her life. Of one occasion especially, an awfully cold
day, a mid-Lent Thursday. She had enjoyed herself wonderfully well.
She was very pretty, fair-haired and fresh looking at that time. Her
wash-house in the Rue Neuve had chosen her as queen in spite of her
leg. And then they had had an outing on the boulevards in carts decked
with greenery, in the midst of stylish people who ogled her. Real
gentlemen put up their glasses as if she had been a true queen. In the
evening there was a wonderful spread, and then they had danced till
daylight. Queen; yes Queen! With a crown and a sash for twenty-four
hours--twice round the clock! And now oppressed by hunger, she looked
on the ground, as if she were seeking for the gutter in which she had
let her fallen majesty tumble.

She raised her eyes again. She was in front of the slaughter-houses
which were being pulled down; through the gaps in the facade one could
see the dark, stinking courtyards, still damp with blood. And when she
had gone down the Boulevard again, she also saw the Lariboisiere
Hospital, with its long grey wall, above which she could distinguish
the mournful, fan-like wings, pierced with windows at even distances.
A door in the wall filled the neighborhood with dread; it was the door
of the dead in solid oak, and without a crack, as stern and as silent
as a tombstone. Then to escape her thoughts, she hurried further down
till she reached the railway bridge. The high parapets of riveted
sheet-iron hid the line from view; she could only distinguish a corner
of the station standing out against the luminous horizon of Paris,
with a vast roof black with coal-dust. Through the clear space she
could hear the engines whistling and the cars being shunted, in token
of colossal hidden activity. Then a train passed by, leaving Paris,
with puffing breath and a growing rumble. And all she perceived of
this train was a white plume, a sudden gust of steam which rose above
the parapet and then evaporated. But the bridge had shaken, and she
herself seemed impressed by this departure at full speed. She turned
round as if to follow the invisible engine, the noise of which was
dying away.

She caught a glimpse of open country through a gap between tall
buildings. Oh, if only she could have taken a train and gone away, far
away from this poverty and suffering. She might have started an
entirely new life! Then she turned to look at the posters on the
bridge sidings. One was on pretty blue paper and offered a fifty-franc
reward for a lost dog. Someone must have really loved that dog!

Gervaise slowly resumed her walk. In the smoky fog which was falling,
the gas lamps were being lighted up; and the long avenues, which had
grown bleak and indistinct, suddenly showed themselves plainly again,
sparkling to their full length and piercing through the night, even to
the vague darkness of the horizon. A great gust swept by; the widened
spaces were lighted up with girdles of little flames, shining under
the far-stretching moonless sky. It was the hour when, from one end of
the Boulevard to the other, the dram-shops and the dancing-halls
flamed gayly as the first glasses were merrily drunk and the first
dance began. It was the great fortnightly pay-day, and the pavement
was crowded with jostling revelers on the spree. There was a breath of
merrymaking in the air--deuced fine revelry, but not objectionable so
far. Fellows were filling themselves in the eating-houses; through the
lighted windows you could see people feeding, with their mouths full
and laughing without taking the trouble to swallow first. Drunkards
were already installed in the wineshops, squabbling and
gesticulating. And there was a cursed noise on all sides, voices
shouting amid the constant clatter of feet on the pavement.

"Say, are you coming to sip?" "Make haste, old man; I'll pay for a
glass of bottled wine." "Here's Pauline! Shan't we just laugh!" The
doors swung to and fro, letting a smell of wine and a sound of cornet
playing escape into the open air. There was a gathering in front of
Pere Colombe's l'Assommoir, which was lighted up like a cathedral for
high mass. /Mon Dieu!/ you would have said a real ceremony was going
on, for several capital fellows, with rounded paunches and swollen
cheeks, looking for all the world like professional choristers, were
singing inside. They were celebrating Saint-Pay, of course--a very
amiable saint, who no doubt keeps the cash box in Paradise. Only, on
seeing how gaily the evening began, the retired petty tradesmen who
had taken their wives out for a stroll wagged their heads, and
repeated that there would be any number of drunken men in Paris that
night. And the night stretched very dark, dead-like and icy, above
this revelry, perforated only with lines of gas lamps extending to the
four corners of heaven.

Gervaise stood in front of l'Assommoir, thinking that if she had had
a couple of sous she could have gone inside and drunk a dram. No doubt
a dram would have quieted her hunger. Ah! what a number of drams she
had drunk in her time! Liquor seemed good stuff to her after all. And
from outside she watched the drunk-making machine, realizing that her
misfortune was due to it, and yet dreaming of finishing herself off
with brandy on the day she had some coin. But a shudder passed through
her hair as she saw it was now almost dark. Well, the night time was
approaching. She must have some pluck and sell herself coaxingly if
she didn't wish to kick the bucket in the midst of the general
revelry. Looking at other people gorging themselves didn't precisely
fill her own stomach. She slackened her pace again and looked around
her. There was a darker shade under the trees. Few people passed
along, only folks in a hurry, who swiftly crossed the Boulevards. And
on the broad, dark, deserted footway, where the sound of the revelry
died away, women were standing and waiting. They remained for long
intervals motionless, patient and as stiff-looking as the scrubby
little plane trees; then they slowly began to move, dragging their
slippers over the frozen soil, taking ten steps or so and then waiting
again, rooted as it were to the ground. There was one of them with a
huge body and insect-like arms and legs, wearing a black silk rag,
with a yellow scarf over her head; there was another one, tall and
bony, who was bareheaded and wore a servant's apron; and others, too--
old ones plastered up and young ones so dirty that a ragpicker would
not have picked them up. However, Gervaise tried to learn what to do
by imitating them; girlish-like emotion tightened her throat; she was
hardly aware whether she felt ashamed or not; she seemed to be living
in a horrible dream. For a quarter of an hour she remained standing
erect. Men hurried by without even turning their heads. Then she moved
about in her turn, and venturing to accost a man who was whistling
with his hands in his pockets, she murmured, in a strangled voice:

"Sir, listen a moment--"

The man gave her a side glance and then went off, whistling all the
louder.

Gervaise grew bolder, and, with her stomach empty, she became absorbed
in this chase, fiercely rushing after her dinner, which was still
running away. She walked about for a long while, without thinking of
the flight of time or of the direction she took. Around her the dark,
mute women went to and fro under the trees like wild beasts in a cage.
They stepped out of the shade like apparitions, and passed under the
light of a gas lamp with their pale masks fully apparent; then they
grew vague again as they went off into the darkness, with a white
strip of petticoat swinging to and fro. Men let themselves be stopped
at times, talked jokingly, and then started off again laughing. Others
would quietly follow a woman to her room, discreetly, ten paces
behind. There was a deal of muttering, quarreling in an undertone and
furious bargaining, which suddenly subsided into profound silence. And
as far as Gervaise went she saw these women standing like sentinels in
the night. They seemed to be placed along the whole length of the
Boulevard. As soon as she met one she saw another twenty paces further
on, and the file stretched out unceasingly. Entire Paris was guarded.
She grew enraged on finding herself disdained, and changing her place,
she now perambulated between the Chaussee de Clignancourt and the
Grand Rue of La Chapelle. All were beggars.

"Sir, just listen."

But the men passed by. She started from the slaughter-houses, which
stank of blood. She glanced on her way at the old Hotel Boncoeur, now
closed. She passed in front of the Lariboisiere Hospital, and
mechanically counted the number of windows that were illuminated with
a pale quiet glimmer, like that of night-lights at the bedside of some
agonizing sufferers. She crossed the railway bridge as the trains
rushed by with a noisy rumble, rending the air in twain with their
shrill whistling! Ah! how sad everything seemed at night-time! Then
she turned on her heels again and filled her eyes with the sight of
the same houses, doing this ten and twenty times without pausing,
without resting for a minute on a bench. No; no one wanted her. Her
shame seemed to be increased by this contempt. She went down towards
the hospital again, and then returned towards the slaughter-houses. It
was her last promenade--from the blood-stained courtyards, where
animals were slaughtered, down to the pale hospital wards, where death
stiffened the patients stretched between the sheets. It was between
these two establishments that she had passed her life.

"Sir, just listen."

But suddenly she perceived her shadow on the ground. When she
approached a gas-lamp it gradually became less vague, till it stood
out at last in full force--an enormous shadow it was, positively
grotesque, so portly had she become. Her stomach, breast and hips, all
equally flabby jostled together as it were. She walked with such a
limp that the shadow bobbed almost topsy-turvy at every step she took;
it looked like a real Punch! Then as she left the street lamp behind
her, the Punch grew taller, becoming in fact gigantic, filling the
whole Boulevard, bobbing to and fro in such style that it seemed fated
to smash its nose against the trees or the houses. /Mon Dieu!/ how
frightful she was! She had never realised her disfigurement so
thoroughly. And she could not help looking at her shadow; indeed, she
waited for the gas-lamps, still watching the Punch as it bobbed about.
Ah! she had a pretty companion beside her! What a figure! It ought to
attract the men at once! And at the thought of her unsightliness, she
lowered her voice, and only just dared to stammer behind the passers-
by:

"Sir, just listen."

It was now getting quite late. Matters were growing bad in the
neighborhood. The eating-houses had closed and voices, gruff with
drink, could be heard disputing in the wineshops. Revelry was turning
to quarreling and fisticuffs. A big ragged chap roared out, "I'll
knock yer to bits; just count yer bones." A large woman had quarreled
with a fellow outside a dancing place, and was calling him "dirty
blackguard" and "lousy bum," whilst he on his side just muttered under
his breath. Drink seemed to have imparted a fierce desire to indulge
in blows, and the passers-by, who were now less numerous, had pale
contracted faces. There was a battle at last; one drunken fellow came
down on his back with all four limbs raised in the air, whilst his
comrade, thinking he had done for him, ran off with his heavy shoes
clattering over the pavement. Groups of men sang dirty songs and then
there would be long silences broken only by hiccoughs or the thud of a
drunk falling down.

Gervaise still hobbled about, going up and down, with the idea of
walking forever. At times, she felt drowsy and almost went to sleep,
rocked, as it were, by her lame leg; then she looked round her with a
start, and noticed she had walked a hundred yards unconsciously. Her
feet were swelling in her ragged shoes. The last clear thought that
occupied her mind was that her hussy of a daughter was perhaps eating
oysters at that very moment. Then everything became cloudy; and,
albeit, she remained with open eyes, it required too great an effort
for her to think. The only sensation that remained to her, in her
utter annihilation, was that it was frightfully cold, so sharply,
mortally cold, she had never known the like before. Why, even dead
people could not feel so cold in their graves. With an effort she
raised her head, and something seemed to lash her face. It was the
snow, which had at last decided to fall from the smoky sky--fine thick
snow, which the breeze swept round and round. For three days it had
been expected and what a splendid moment it chose to appear.

Woken up by the first gusts, Gervaise began to walk faster. Eager to
get home, men were running along, with their shoulders already white.
And as she suddenly saw one who, on the contrary, was coming slowly
towards her under the trees, she approached him and again said: "Sir,
just listen--"

The man has stopped. But he did not seem to have heard her. He held
out his hand, and muttered in a low voice: "Charity, if you please!"

They looked at one another. Ah! /Mon Dieu!/ They were reduced to this
--Pere Bru begging, Madame Coupeau walking the streets! They remained
stupefied in front of each other. They could join hands as equals now.
The old workman had prowled about the whole evening, not daring to
stop anyone, and the first person he accosted was as hungry as
himself. Lord, was it not pitiful! To have toiled for fifty years and
be obliged to beg! To have been one of the most prosperous laundresses
in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or and to end beside the gutter! They still
looked at one another. Then, without saying a word, they went off in
different directions under the lashing snow.

It was a perfect tempest. On these heights, in the midst of this open
space, the fine snow revolved round and round as if the wind came from
the four corners of heaven. You could not see ten paces off,
everything was confused in the midst of this flying dust. The
surroundings had disappeared, the Boulevard seemed to be dead, as if
the storm had stretched the silence of its white sheet over the
hiccoughs of the last drunkards. Gervaise still went on, blinded,
lost. She felt her way by touching the trees. As she advanced the gas-
lamps shone out amidst the whiteness like torches. Then, suddenly,
whenever she crossed an open space, these lights failed her; she was
enveloped in the whirling snow, unable to distinguish anything to
guide her. Below stretched the ground, vaguely white; grey walls
surrounded her, and when she paused, hesitating and turning her head,
she divined that behind this icy veil extended the immense avenue with
interminable vistas of gas-lamps--the black and deserted Infinite of
Paris asleep.

She was standing where the outer Boulevard meets the Boulevards
Magenta and Ornano, thinking of lying down on the ground, when
suddenly she heard a footfall. She began to run, but the snow blinded
her, and the footsteps went off without her being able to tell whether
it was to the right or to the left. At last, however, she perceived a
man's broad shoulders, a dark form which was disappearing amid the
snow. Oh! she wouldn't let this man get away. And she ran on all the
faster, reached him, and caught him by the blouse: "Sir, sir, just
listen."

The man turned round. It was Goujet.

So now she had accosted Golden-Beard. But what had she done on earth
to be tortured like this by Providence? It was the crowning blow--to
stumble against Goujet, and be seen by her blacksmith friend, pale and
begging, like a common street walker. And it happened just under a
gas-lamp; she could see her deformed shadow swaying on the snow like a
real caricature. You would have said she was drunk. /Mon Dieu!/ not to
have a crust of bread, or a drop of wine in her body, and to be taken
for a drunken women! It was her own fault, why did she booze? Goujet
no doubt thought she had been drinking, and that she was up to some
nasty pranks.

He looked at her while the snow scattered daisies over his beautiful
yellow beard. Then as she lowered her head and stepped back he
detained her.

"Come," said he.

And he walked on first. She followed him. They both crossed the silent
district, gliding noiselessly along the walls. Poor Madame Goujet had
died of rheumatism in the month of October. Goujet still resided in
the little house in the Rue Neuve, living gloomily alone. On this
occasion he was belated because he had sat up nursing a wounded
comrade. When he had opened the door and lighted a lamp, he turned
towards Gervaise, who had remained humbly on the threshold. Then, in a
low voice, as if he were afraid his mother could still hear him, he
exclaimed, "Come in."

The first room, Madame Goujet's, was piously preserved in the state
she had left it. On a chair near the window lay the tambour by the
side of the large arm-chair, which seemed to be waiting for the old
lace-worker. The bed was made, and she could have stretched herself
beneath the sheets if she had left the cemetery to come and spend the
evening with her child. There was something solemn, a perfume of
honesty and goodness about the room.

"Come in," repeated the blacksmith in a louder tone.

She went in, half frightened, like a disreputable woman gliding into a
respectable place. He was quite pale, and trembled at the thought of
ushering a woman like this into his dead mother's home. They crossed
the room on tip-toe, as if they were ashamed to be heard. Then when he
had pushed Gervaise into his own room he closed the door. Here he was
at home. It was the narrow closet she was acquainted with; a
schoolgirl's room, with the little iron bedstead hung with white
curtains. On the walls the engravings cut out of illustrated
newspapers had gathered and spread, and they now reached to the
ceiling. The room looked so pure that Gervaise did not dare to
advance, but retreated as far as she could from the lamp. Then without
a word, in a transport as it were, he tried to seize hold of her and
press her in his arms. But she felt faint and murmured: "Oh! /Mon
Dieu!/ Oh, /mon Dieu!/"

The fire in the stove, having been covered with coke-dust, was still
alight, and the remains of a stew which Goujet had put to warm,
thinking he should return to dinner, was smoking in front of the
cinders. Gervaise, who felt her numbness leave her in the warmth of
this room, would have gone down on all fours to eat out of the
saucepan. Her hunger was stronger than her will; her stomach seemed
rent in two; and she stooped down with a sigh. Goujet had realized the
truth. He placed the stew on the table, cut some bread, and poured her
out a glass of wine.

"Thank you! Thank you!" said she. "Oh, how kind you are! Thank you!"

She stammered; she could hardly articulate. When she caught hold of
her fork she began to tremble so acutely that she let it fall again.
The hunger that possessed her made her wag her head as if senile. She
carried the food to her mouth with her fingers. As she stuffed the
first potato into her mouth, she burst out sobbing. Big tears coursed
down her cheeks and fell onto her bread. She still ate, gluttonously
devouring this bread thus moistened by her tears, and breathing very
hard all the while. Goujet compelled her to drink to prevent her from
stifling, and her glass chinked, as it were, against her teeth.

"Will you have some more bread?" he asked in an undertone.

She cried, she said "no," she said "yes," she didn't know. Ah! how
nice and yet how painful it is to eat when one is starving.

And standing in front of her, Goujet looked at her all the while;
under the bright light cast by the lamp-shade he could see her well.
How aged and altered she seemed! The heat was melting the snow on her
hair and clothes, and she was dripping. Her poor wagging head was
quite grey; there were any number of grey locks which the wind had
disarranged. Her neck sank into her shoulders and she had become so
fat and ugly you might have cried on noticing the change. He
recollected their love, when she was quite rosy, working with her
irons, and showing the child-like crease which set such a charming
necklace round her throat. In those times he had watched her for
hours, glad just to look at her. Later on she had come to the forge,
and there they had enjoyed themselves whilst he beat the iron, and she
stood by watching his hammer dance. How often at night, with his head
buried in his pillow, had he dreamed of holding her in his arms.

Gervaise rose; she had finished. She remained for a moment with her
head lowered, and ill at ease. Then, thinking she detected a gleam in
his eyes, she raised her hand to her jacket and began to unfasten the
first button. But Goujet had fallen on his knees, and taking hold of
her hands, he exclaimed softly:

"I love you, Madame Gervaise; oh! I love you still, and in spite of
everything, I swear it to you!"

"Don't say that, Monsieur Goujet!" she cried, maddened to see him like
this at her feet. "No, don't say that; you grieve me too much."

And as he repeated that he could never love twice in his life, she
became yet more despairing.

"No, no, I am too ashamed. For the love of God get up. It is my place
to be on the ground."

He rose, he trembled all over and stammered: "Will you allow me to
kiss you?"

Overcome with surprise and emotion she could not speak, but she
assented with a nod of the head. After all she was his; he could do
what he chose with her. But he merely kissed her.

"That suffices between us, Madame Gervaise," he muttered. "It sums up
all our friendship, does it not?"

He had kissed her on the forehead, on a lock of her grey hair. He had
not kissed anyone since his mother's death. His sweetheart Gervaise
alone remained to him in life. And then, when he had kissed her with
so much respect, he fell back across his bed with sobs rising in his
throat. And Gervaise could not remain there any longer. It was too sad
and too abominable to meet again under such circumstances when one
loved. "I love you, Monsieur Goujet," she exclaimed. "I love you
dearly, also. Oh! it isn't possible you still love me. Good-bye, good-
bye; it would smother us both; it would be more than we could stand."

And she darted through Madame Goujet's room and found herself outside
on the pavement again. When she recovered her senses she had rung at
the door in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or and Boche was pulling the
string. The house was quite dark, and in the black night the yawning,
dilapidated porch looked like an open mouth. To think that she had
been ambitious of having a corner in this barracks! Had her ears been
stopped up then, that she had not heard the cursed music of despair
which sounded behind the walls? Since she had set foot in the place
she had begun to go down hill. Yes, it must bring bad luck to shut
oneself up in these big workmen's houses; the cholera of misery was
contagious there. That night everyone seemed to have kicked the
bucket. She only heard the Boches snoring on the right-hand side,
while Lantier and Virginie on the left were purring like a couple of
cats who were not asleep, but have their eyes closed and feel warm. In
the courtyard she fancied she was in a perfect cemetery; the snow
paved the ground with white; the high frontages, livid grey in tint,
rose up unlighted like ruined walls, and not a sigh could be heard. It
seemed as if a whole village, stiffened with cold and hunger, were
buried here. She had to step over a black gutter--water from the dye-
works--which smoked and streaked the whiteness of the snow with its
muddy course. It was the color of her thoughts. The beautiful light
blue and light pink waters had long since flowed away.

Then, whilst ascending the six flights of stairs in the dark, she
could not prevent herself from laughing; an ugly laugh which hurt her.
She recalled her ideal of former days: to work quietly, always have
bread to eat and a tidy house to sleep in, to bring up her children,
not to be beaten and to die in her bed. No, really, it was comical how
all that was becoming realized! She no longer worked, she no longer
ate, she slept on filth, her husband frequented all sorts of
wineshops, and her husband drubbed her at all hours of the day; all
that was left for her to do was to die on the pavement, and it would
not take long if on getting into her room, she could only pluck up
courage to fling herself out of the window. Was it not enough to make
one think that she had hoped to earn thirty thousand francs a year,
and no end of respect? Ah! really, in this life it is no use being
modest; one only gets sat upon. Not even pap and a nest, that is the
common lot.

What increased her ugly laugh was the recollection of her grand hope
of retiring into the country after twenty years passed in ironing.
Well! she was on her way to the country. She was going to have her
green corner in the Pere-Lachaise cemetery.

When she entered the passage she was like a mad-woman. Her poor head
was whirling round. At heart her great grief was at having bid the
blacksmith an eternal farewell. All was ended between them; they would
never see each other more. Then, besides that, all her other thoughts
of misfortune pressed upon her, and almost caused her head to split.
As she passed she poked her nose in at the Bijards' and beheld Lalie
dead, with a look of contentment on her face at having at last been
laid out and slumbering forever. Ah, well! children were luckier than
grown-up people. And, as a glimmer of light passed under old Bazouge's
door, she walked boldly in, seized with a mania for going off on the
same journey as the little one.

That old joker, Bazouge, had come home that night in an extraordinary
state of gaiety. He had had such a booze that he was snoring on the
ground in spite of the temperature, and that no doubt did not prevent
him from dreaming something pleasant, for he seemed to be laughing
from his stomach as he slept. The candle, which he had not put out,
lighted up his old garments, his black cloak, which he had drawn over
his knees as though it had been a blanket.

On beholding him Gervaise uttered such a deep wailing that he awoke.

"/Mon Dieu!/ shut the door! It's so cold! Ah! it's you! What's the
matter? What do you want?"

Then, Gervaise, stretching out her arms, no longer knowing what she
stuttered, began passionately to implore him:

"Oh! take me away! I've had enough; I want to go off. You mustn't bear
me any grudge. I didn't know. One never knows until one's ready. Oh,
yes; one's glad to go one day! Take me away! Take me away and I shall
thank you!"

She fell on her knees, all shaken with a desire which caused her to
turn ghastly pale. Never before had she thus dragged herself at a
man's feet. Old Bazouge's ugly mug, with his mouth all on one side and
his hide begrimed with the dust of funerals, seemed to her as
beautiful and resplendent as a sun. The old fellow, who was scarcely
awake thought, however, that it was some sort of bad joke.

"Look here," murmured he, "no jokes!"

"Take me away," repeated Gervaise more ardently still. "You remember,
I knocked one evening against the partition; then I said that it
wasn't true, because I was still a fool. But see! Give me your hands.
I'm no longer frightened. Take me away to by-by; you'll see how still
I'll be. Oh! sleep, that's all I care for. Oh! I'll love you so much!"

Bazouge, ever gallant, thought that he ought not to be hasty with a
lady who appeared to have taken such a fancy to him. She was falling
to pieces, but all the same, what remained was very fine, especially
when she was excited.

"What you say is very true," said he in a convinced manner. "I packed
up three more to-day who would only have been too glad to have given
me something for myself, could they but have got their hands to their
pockets. But, little woman, it's not so easily settled as all that--"

"Take me away, take me away," continued Gervaise, "I want to die."

"Ah! but there's a little operation to be gone through beforehand--you
know, glug!"

And he made a noise in his throat, as though swallowing his tongue.
Then, thinking it a good joke, he chuckled.

Gervaise slowly rose to her feet. So he too could do nothing for her.
She went to her room and threw herself on her straw, feeling stupid,
and regretting she had eaten. Ah! no indeed, misery did not kill
quickly enough.



                             CHAPTER XIII

That night Coupeau went on a spree. Next day, Gervaise received ten
francs from her son Etienne, who was a mechanic on some railway. The
youngster sent her a few francs from time to time, knowing that they
were not very well off at home. She made some soup, and ate it all
alone, for that scoundrel Coupeau did not return on the morrow. On
Monday he was still absent, and on Tuesday also. The whole week went
by. Ah, it would be good luck if some woman took him in.

On Sunday Gervaise received a printed document. It was to inform her
that her husband was dying at the Sainte-Anne asylum.

Gervaise did not disturb herself. He knew the way; he could very well
get home from the asylum by himself. They had cured him there so often
that they could once more do him the sorry service of putting him on
his pins again. Had she not heard that very morning that for the week
before Coupeau had been seen as round as a ball, rolling about
Belleville from one dram shop to another in the company of My-Boots.
Exactly so; and it was My-Boots, too, who stood treat. He must have
hooked his missus's stocking with all the savings gained at very hard
work. It wasn't clean money they had used, but money that could infect
them with any manner of vile diseases. Well, anyway, they hadn't
thought to invite her for a drink. If you wanted to drink by yourself,
you could croak by yourself.

However, on Monday, as Gervaise had a nice little meal planned for the
evening, the remains of some beans and a pint of wine, she pretended
to herself that a walk would give her an appetite. The letter from the
asylum which she had left lying on the bureau bothered her. The snow
had melted, the day was mild and grey and on the whole fine, with just
a slight keenness in the air which was invigorating. She started at
noon, for her walk was a long one. She had to cross Paris and her bad
leg always slowed her. With that the streets were crowded; but the
people amused her; she reached her destination very pleasantly. When
she had given her name, she was told a most astounding story to the
effect that Coupeau had been fished out of the Seine close to the
Pont-Neuf. He had jumped over the parapet, under the impression that a
bearded man was barring his way. A fine jump, was it not? And as for
finding out how Coupeau got to be on the Pont-Neuf, that was a matter
he could not even explain himself.

One of the keepers escorted Gervaise. She was ascending a staircase,
when she heard howlings which made her shiver to her very bones.

"He's playing a nice music, isn't he?" observed the keeper.

"Who is?" asked she.

"Why, your old man! He's been yelling like that ever since the day
before yesterday; and he dances, you'll just see."

/Mon Dieu!/ what a sight! She stood as one transfixed. The cell was
padded from the floor to the ceiling. On the floor there were two
straw mats, one piled on top of the other; and in a corner were spread
a mattress and a bolster, nothing more. Inside there Coupeau was
dancing and yelling, his blouse in tatters and his limbs beating the
air. He wore the mask of one about to die. What a breakdown! He bumped
up against the window, then retired backwards, beating time with his
arms and shaking his hands as though he were trying to wrench them off
and fling them in somebody's face. One meets with buffoons in low
dancing places who imitate the delirium tremens, only they imitate it
badly. One must see this drunkard's dance if one wishes to know what
it is like when gone through in earnest. The song also has its merits,
a continuous yell worthy of carnival-time, a mouth wide open uttering
the same hoarse trombone notes for hours together. Coupeau had the
howl of a beast with a crushed paw. Strike up, music! Gentlemen,
choose your partners!

"/Mon Dieu!/ what is the matter with him? What is the matter with
him?" repeated Gervaise, seized with fear.

A house surgeon, a big fair fellow with a rosy countenance, and
wearing a white apron, was quietly sitting taking notes. The case was
a curious one; the doctor did not leave the patient.

"Stay a while if you like," said he to the laundress; "but keep quiet.
Try and speak to him, he will not recognise you."

Coupeau indeed did not even appear to see his wife. She had only had a
bad view of him on entering, he was wriggling about so much. When she
looked him full in the face, she stood aghast. /Mon Dieu!/ was it
possible he had a countenance like that, his eyes full of blood and
his lips covered with scabs? She would certainly never have known him.
To begin with, he was making too many grimaces, without saying why,
his mouth suddenly out of all shape, his nose curled up, his cheeks
drawn in, a perfect animal's muzzle. His skin was so hot the air
steamed around him; and his hide was as though varnished, covered with
a heavy sweat which trickled off him. In his mad dance, one could see
all the same that he was not at his ease, his head was heavy and his
limbs ached.

Gervaise drew near to the house surgeon, who was strumming a tune with
the tips of his fingers on the back of his chair.

"Tell me, sir, it's serious then this time?"

The house surgeon nodded his head without answering.

"Isn't he jabbering to himself? Eh! don't you hear? What's it about?

"About things he sees," murmured the young man. "Keep quiet, let me
listen."

Coupeau was speaking in a jerky voice. A glimmer of amusement lit up
his eyes. He looked on the floor, to the right, to the left, and
turned about as though he had been strolling in the Bois de Vincennes,
conversing with himself.

"Ah! that's nice, that's grand! There're cottages, a regular fair. And
some jolly fine music! What a Balthazar's feast! They're smashing the
crockery in there. Awfully swell! Now it's being lit up; red balls in
the air, and it jumps, and it flies! Oh! oh! what a lot of lanterns in
the trees! It's confoundedly pleasant! There's water flowing
everywhere, fountains, cascades, water which sings, oh! with the voice
of a chorister. The cascades are grand!"

And he drew himself up, as though the better to hear the delicious
song of the water; he sucked in forcibly, fancying he was drinking the
fresh spray blown from the fountains. But, little by little, his face
resumed an agonized expression. Then he crouched down and flew quicker
than ever around the walls of the cell, uttering vague threats.

"More traps, all that! I thought as much. Silence, you set of
swindlers! Yes, you're making a fool of me. It's for that that you're
drinking and bawling inside there with your viragoes. I'll demolish
you, you and your cottage! Damnation! Will you leave me in peace?"

He clinched his fists; then he uttered a hoarse cry, stooping as he
ran. And he stuttered, his teeth chattering with fright.

"It's so that I may kill myself. No, I won't throw myself in! All that
water means that I've no heart. No, I won't throw myself in!"

The cascades, which fled at his approach, advanced when he retired.
And all of a sudden, he looked stupidly around him, mumbling, in a
voice which was scarcely audible:

"It isn't possible, they set conjurers against me!"

"I'm off, sir. I've got to go. Good-night!" said Gervaise to the house
surgeon. "It upsets me too much; I'll come again."

She was quite white. Coupeau was continuing his breakdown from the
window to the mattress and from the mattress to the window,
perspiring, toiling, always beating the same rhythm. Then she hurried
away. But though she scrambled down the stairs, she still heard her
husband's confounded jig until she reached the bottom. Ah! /Mon Dieu!/
how pleasant it was out of doors, one could breathe there!

That evening everyone in the tenement was discussing Coupeau's strange
malady. The Boches invited Gervaise to have a drink with them, even
though they now considered Clump-clump beneath them, in order to hear
all the details. Madame Lorilleux and Madame Poisson were there also.
Boche told of a carpenter he had known who had been a drinker of
absinthe. The man shed his clothes, went out in the street and danced
the polka until he died. That rather struck the ladies as comic, even
though it was very sad.

Gervaise got up in the middle of the room and did an imitation of
Coupeau. Yes, that's just how it was. Can anyone feature a man doing
that for hours on end? If they didn't believe they could go see for
themselves.

On getting up the next morning, Gervaise promised herself she would
not return to the Sainte-Anne again. What use would it be? She did not
want to go off her head also. However, every ten minutes, she fell to
musing and became absent-minded. It would be curious though, if he
were still throwing his legs about. When twelve o'clock struck, she
could no longer resist; she started off and did not notice how long
the walk was, her brain was so full of her desire to go and the dread
of what awaited her.

Oh! there was no need for her to ask for news. She heard Coupeau's
song the moment she reached the foot of the staircase. Just the same
tune, just the same dance. She might have thought herself going up
again after having only been down for a minute. The attendant of the
day before, who was carrying some jugs of tisane along the corridor,
winked his eye as he met her, by way of being amiable.

"Still the same, then?" said she.

"Oh! still the same!" he replied without stopping.

She entered the room, but she remained near the door, because there
were some people with Coupeau. The fair, rosy house surgeon was
standing up, having given his chair to a bald old gentleman who was
decorated and had a pointed face like a weasel. He was no doubt the
head doctor, for his glance was as sharp and piercing as a gimlet. All
the dealers in sudden death have a glance like that.

No, really, it was not a pretty sight; and Gervaise, all in a tremble,
asked herself why she had returned. To think that the evening before
they accused her at the Boches' of exaggerating the picture! Now she
saw better how Coupeau set about it, his eyes wide open looking into
space, and she would never forget it. She overheard a few words
between the house surgeon and the head doctor. The former was giving
some details of the night: her husband had talked and thrown himself
about, that was what it amounted to. Then the bald-headed old
gentleman, who was not very polite by the way, at length appeared to
become aware of her presence; and when the house surgeon had informed
him that she was the patient's wife, he began to question her in the
harsh manner of a commissary of the police.

"Did this man's father drink?"

"Yes, sir; just a little like everyone. He killed himself by falling
from a roof one day when he was tipsy."

"Did his mother drink?"

"Well! sir, like everyone else, you know; a drop here, a drop there.
Oh! the family is very respectable! There was a brother who died very
young in convulsions."

The doctor looked at her with his piercing eye. He resumed in his
rough voice:

"And you, you drink too, don't you?"

Gervaise stammered, protested, and placed her hand upon her heart, as
though to take her solemn oath.

"You drink! Take care; see where drink leads to. One day or other you
will die thus."

Then she remained close to the wall. The doctor had turned his back to
her. He squatted down, without troubling himself as to whether his
overcoat trailed in the dust of the matting; for a long while he
studied Coupeau's trembling, waiting for its reappearance, following
it with his glance. That day the legs were going in their turn, the
trembling had descended from the hands to the feet; a regular puppet
with his strings being pulled, throwing his limbs about, whilst the
trunk of his body remained as stiff as a piece of wood. The disease
progressed little by little. It was like a musical box beneath the
skin; it started off every three or four seconds and rolled along for
an instant; then it stopped and then it started off again, just the
same as the little shiver which shakes stray dogs in winter, when cold
and standing in some doorway for protection. Already the middle of the
body and the shoulders quivered like water on the point of boiling. It
was a funny demolition all the same, going off wriggling like a girl
being tickled.

Coupeau, meanwhile, was complaining in a hollow voice. He seemed to
suffer a great deal more than the day before. His broken murmurs
disclosed all sorts of ailments. Thousands of pins were pricking him.
He felt something heavy all about his body; some cold, wet animal was
crawling over his thighs and digging its fangs into his flesh. Then
there were other animals sticking to his shoulders, tearing his back
with their claws.

"I'm thirsty, oh! I'm thirsty!" groaned he continually.

The house surgeon handed him a little lemonade from a small shelf;
Coupeau seized the mug in both hands and greedily took a mouthful,
spilling half the liquid over himself; but he spat it out at once with
furious disgust, exclaiming:

"Damnation! It's brandy!"

Then, on a sign from the doctor, the house surgeon tried to make him
drink some water without leaving go of the bottle. This time he
swallowed the mouthful, yelling as though he had swallowed fire.

"It's brandy; damnation! It's brandy!"

Since the night before, everything he had had to drink was brandy. It
redoubled his thirst and he could no longer drink, because everything
burnt him. They had brought him some broth, but they were evidently
trying to poison him, for the broth smelt of vitriol. The bread was
sour and moldy. There was nothing but poison around him. The cell
stank of sulphur. He even accused persons of rubbing matches under his
nose to infect him.

All on a sudden he exclaimed:

"Oh! the rats, there're the rats now!"

There were black balls that were changing into rats. These filthy
animals got fatter and fatter, then they jumped onto the mattress and
disappeared. There was also a monkey which came out of the wall, and
went back into the wall, and which approached so near him each time,
that he drew back through fear of having his nose bitten off. Suddenly
there was another change, the walls were probably cutting capers, for
he yelled out, choking with terror and rage:

"That's it, gee up! Shake me, I don't care! Gee up! Tumble down! Yes,
ring the bells, you black crows! Play the organ to prevent my calling
the police. They've put a bomb behind the wall, the lousy scoundrels!
I can hear it, it snorts, they're going to blow us up! Fire!
Damnation, fire! There's a cry of fire! There it blazes. Oh, it's
getting lighter, lighter! All the sky's burning, red fires, green
fires, yellow fires. Hi! Help! Fire!"

His cries became lost in a rattle. He now only mumbled disconnected
words, foaming at the mouth, his chin wet with saliva. The doctor
rubbed his nose with his finger, a movement no doubt habitual with him
in the presence of serious cases. He turned to the house surgeon, and
asked him in a low voice:

"And the temperature, still the hundred degrees, is it not?"

"Yes, sir."

The doctor pursed his lips. He continued there another two minutes,
his eyes fixed on Coupeau. Then he shrugged his shoulders, adding:

"The same treatment, broth, milk, lemonade, and the potion of extract
of quinine. Do not leave him, and call me if necessary."

He went out and Gervaise followed him, to ask him if there was any
hope. But he walked so stiffly along the corridor, that she did not
dare approach him. She stood rooted there a minute, hesitating whether
to return and look at her husband. The time she had already passed had
been far from pleasant. As she again heard him calling out that the
lemonade smelt of brandy, she hurried away, having had enough of the
performance. In the streets, the galloping of the horses and the noise
of the vehicles made her fancy that all the inmates of Saint-Anne were
at her heels. And that the doctor had threatened her! Really, she
already thought she had the complaint.

In the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or the Boches and the others were naturally
awaiting her. The moment she appeared they called her into the
concierge's room. Well! was old Coupeau still in the land of the
living? /Mon Dieu!/ yes, he still lived. Boche seemed amazed and
confounded; he had bet a bottle that old Coupeau would not last till
the evening. What! He still lived! And they all exhibited their
astonishment, and slapped their thighs. There was a fellow who lasted!
Madame Lorilleux reckoned up the hours; thirty-six hours and twenty-
four hours, sixty hours. /Sacre Dieu!/ already sixty hours that he had
been doing the jig and screaming! Such a feat of strength had never
been seen before. But Boche, who was upset that he had lost the bet,
questioned Gervaise with an air of doubt, asking her if she was quite
sure he had not filed off behind her back. Oh! no, he had no desire
to, he jumped about too much. Then Boche, still doubting, begged her
to show them again a little how he was acting, just so they could see.
Yes, yes, a little more! The request was general! The company told her
she would be very kind if she would oblige, for just then two
neighbors happened to be there who had not been present the day
before, and who had come down purposely to see the performance. The
concierge called to everybody to make room, they cleared the centre of
the apartment, pushing one another with their elbows, and quivering
with curiosity. Gervaise, however, hung down her head. Really, she was
afraid it might upset her. Desirous though of showing that she did not
refuse for the sake of being pressed, she tried two or three little
leaps; but she became quite queer, and stopped; on her word of honor,
she was not equal to it! There was a murmur of disappointment; it was
a pity, she imitated it perfectly. However, she could not do it, it
was no use insisting! And when Virginie left to return to her shop,
they forgot all about old Coupeau and began to gossip about the
Poissons and their home, a real mess now. The day before, the bailiffs
had been; the policeman was about to lose his place; as for Lantier,
he was now making up to the daughter of the restaurant keeper next
door, a fine woman, who talked of setting up as a tripe-seller. Ah! it
was amusing, everyone already beheld a tripe-seller occupying the
shop; after the sweets should come something substantial. And that
blind Poisson! How could a man whose profession required him to be so
smart fail to see what was going on in his own home? They stopped
talking suddenly when they noticed that Gervaise was off in a corner
by herself imitating Coupeau. Her hands and feet were jerking. Yes,
they couldn't ask for a better performance! Then Gervaise started as
if waking from a dream and hurried away calling out good-night to
everyone.

On the morrow, the Boches saw her start off at twelve, the same as on
the two previous days. They wished her a pleasant afternoon. That day
the corridor at Sainte-Anne positively shook with Coupeau's yells and
kicks. She had not left the stairs when she heard him yelling:

"What a lot of bugs!--Come this way again that I may squash you!--Ah!
they want to kill me! ah! the bugs!--I'm a bigger swell than the lot
of you! Clear out, damnation! Clear out."

For a moment she stood panting before the door. Was he then fighting
against an army? When she entered, the performance had increased and
was embellished even more than on previous occasions. Coupeau was a
raving madman, the same as one sees at the Charenton mad-house! He was
throwing himself about in the center of the cell, slamming his fists
everywhere, on himself, on the walls, on the floor, and stumbling
about punching empty space. He wanted to open the window, and he hid
himself, defended himself, called, answered, produced all this uproar
without the least assistance, in the exasperated way of a man beset by
a mob of people. Then Gervaise understood that he fancied he was on a
roof, laying down sheets of zinc. He imitated the bellows with his
mouth, he moved the iron about in the fire and knelt down so as to
pass his thumb along the edges of the mat, thinking that he was
soldering it. Yes, his handicraft returned to him at the moment of
croaking; and if he yelled so loud, if he fought on his roof, it was
because ugly scoundrels were preventing him doing his work properly.
On all the neighboring roofs were villains mocking and tormenting him.
Besides that, the jokers were letting troops of rats loose about his
legs. Ah! the filthy beasts, he saw them always! Though he kept
crushing them, bringing his foot down with all his strength, fresh
hordes of them continued passing, until they quite covered the roof.
And there were spiders there too! He roughly pressed his trousers
against his thigh to squash some big spiders which had crept up his
leg. /Mon Dieu!/ he would never finish his day's work, they wanted to
destroy him, his employer would send him to prison. Then, whilst
making haste, he suddenly imagined he had a steam-engine in his
stomach; with his mouth wide open, he puffed out the smoke, a dense
smoke which filled the cell and found an outlet by the window; and,
bending forward, still puffing, he looked outside of the cloud of
smoke as it unrolled and ascended to the sky, where it hid the sun.

"Look!" cried he, "there's the band of the Chaussee Clignancourt,
disguised as bears with drums, putting on a show."

He remained crouching before the window, as though he had been
watching a procession in a street, from some rooftop.

"There's the cavalcade, lions and panthers making grimaces--there's
brats dressed up as dogs and cats--there's tall Clemence, with her wig
full of feathers. Ah! /Mon Dieu!/ she's turning head over heels; she's
showed everything--you'd better run, Duckie. Hey, the cops, leave her
alone!--just you leave her alone--don't shoot! Don't shoot--"

His voice rose, hoarse and terrified and he stooped down quickly,
saying that the police and the military were below, men who were
aiming at him with rifles. In the wall he saw the barrel of a pistol
emerging, pointed at his breast. They had dragged the girl away.

"Don't shoot! /Mon Dieu!/ Don't shoot!"

Then, the buildings were tumbling down, he imitated the cracking of a
whole neighborhood collapsing; and all disappeared, all flew off. But
he had no time to take breath, other pictures passed with
extraordinary rapidity. A furious desire to speak filled his mouth
full of words which he uttered without any connection, and with a
gurgling sound in his throat. He continued to raise his voice, louder
and louder.

"Hallow, it's you? Good-day! No jokes! Don't make me nuzzle your
hair."

And he passed his hand before his face, he blew to send the hairs
away. The house surgeon questioned him.

"Who is it you see?"

"My wife, of course!"

He was looking at the wall, with his back to Gervaise. The latter had
a rare fright, and she examined the wall, to see if she also could
catch sight of herself there. He continued talking.

"Now, you know, none of your wheedling--I won't be tied down! You are
pretty, you have got a fine dress. Where did you get the money for it,
you cow? You've been at a party, camel! Wait a bit and I'll do for
you! Ah! you're hiding your boy friend behind your skirts. Who is it?
Stoop down that I may see. Damnation, it's him again!"

With a terrible leap, he went head first against the wall; but the
padding softened the blow. One only heard his body rebounding onto the
matting, where the shock had sent him.

"Who is it you see?" repeated the house surgeon.

"The hatter! The hatter!" yelled Coupeau.

And the house surgeon questioning Gervaise, the latter stuttered
without being able to answer, for this scene stirred up within her all
the worries of her life. The zinc-worker thrust out his fists.

"We'll settle this between us, my lad. It's full time I did for you!
Ah, you coolly come, with that virago on your arm, to make a fool of
me before everyone. Well! I'm going to throttle you--yes, yes, I! And
without putting any gloves on either! I'll stop your swaggering. Take
that! And that! And that!"

He hit about in the air viciously. Then a wild rage took possession of
him. Having bumped against the wall in walking backwards, he thought
he was being attacked from behind. He turned round, and fiercely
hammered away at the padding. He sprang about, jumped from one corner
to another, knocked his stomach, his back, his shoulder, rolled over,
and picked himself up again. His bones seemed softened, his flesh had
a sound like damp oakum. He accompanied this pretty game with
atrocious threats, and wild and guttural cries. However the battle
must have been going badly for him, for his breathing became quicker,
his eyes were starting out of his head, and he seemed little by little
to be seized with the cowardice of a child.

"Murder! Murder! Be off with you both. Oh! you brutes, they're
laughing. There she is on her back, the virago! She must give in, it's
settled. Ah! the brigand, he's murdering her! He's cutting off her leg
with his knife. The other leg's on the ground, the stomach's in two,
it's full of blood. Oh! /Mon Dieu!/ Oh! /Mon Dieu!/"

And, covered with perspiration, his hair standing on end, looking a
frightful object, he retired backwards, violently waving his arms, as
though to send the abominable sight from him. He uttered two heart-
rending wails, and fell flat on his back on the mattress, against
which his heels had caught.

"He's dead, sir, he's dead!" said Gervaise, clasping her hands.

The house surgeon had drawn near, and was pulling Coupeau into the
middle of the mattress. No, he was not dead. They had taken his shoes
off. His bare feet hung off the end of the mattress and they were
dancing all by themselves, one beside the other, in time, a little
hurried and regular dance.

Just then the head doctor entered. He had brought two of his
colleagues--one thin, the other fat, and both decorated like himself.
All three stooped down without saying a word, and examined the man all
over; then they rapidly conversed together in a low voice. They had
uncovered Coupeau from his thighs to his shoulders, and by standing on
tiptoe Gervaise could see the naked trunk spread out. Well! it was
complete. The trembling had descended from the arms and ascended from
the legs, and now the trunk itself was getting lively!

"He's sleeping," murmured the head doctor.

And he called the two others' attention to the man's countenance.
Coupeau, his eyes closed, had little nervous twinges which drew up all
his face. He was more hideous still, thus flattened out, with his jaw
projecting, and his visage deformed like a corpse's that had suffered
from nightmare; but the doctors, having caught sight of his feet, went
and poked their noses over them, with an air of profound interest. The
feet were still dancing. Though Coupeau slept the feet danced. Oh!
their owner might snore, that did not concern them, they continued
their little occupation without either hurrying or slackening. Regular
mechanical feet, feet which took their pleasure wherever they found
it.

Gervaise having seen the doctors place their hands on her old man,
wished to feel him also. She approached gently and laid a hand on his
shoulder, and she kept it there a minute. /Mon Dieu!/ whatever was
taking place inside? It danced down into the very depths of the flesh,
the bones themselves must have been jumping. Quiverings, undulations,
coming from afar, flowed like a river beneath the skin. When she
pressed a little she felt she distinguished the suffering cries of the
marrow. What a fearful thing, something was boring away like a mole!
It must be the rotgut from l'Assommoir that was hacking away inside
him. Well! his entire body had been soaked in it.

The doctors had gone away. At the end of an hour Gervaise, who had
remained with the house surgeon, repeated in a low voice:

"He's dead, sir; he's dead!"

But the house surgeon, who was watching the feet, shook his head. The
bare feet, projecting beyond the mattress, still danced on. They were
not particularly clean and the nails were long. Several more hours
passed. All on a sudden they stiffened and became motionless. Then the
house surgeon turned towards Gervaise, saying:

"It's over now."

Death alone had been able to stop those feet.

When Gervaise got back to the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or she found at the
Boches' a number of women who were cackling in excited tones. She
thought they were awaiting her to have the latest news, the same as
the other days.

"He's gone," said she, quietly, as she pushed open the door, looking
tired out and dull.

But no one listened to her. The whole building was topsy-turvy. Oh! a
most extraordinary story. Poisson had caught his wife with Lantier.
Exact details were not known, because everyone had a different
version. However, he had appeared just when they were not expecting
him. Some further information was given, which the ladies repeated to
one another as they pursed their lips. A sight like that had naturally
brought Poisson out of his shell. He was a regular tiger. This man,
who talked but little and who always seemed to walk with a stick up
his back, had begun to roar and jump about. Then nothing more had been
heard. Lantier had evidently explained things to the husband. Anyhow,
it could not last much longer, and Boche announced that the girl of
the restaurant was for certain going to take the shop for selling
tripe. That rogue of a hatter adored tripe.

On seeing Madame Lorilleux and Madame Lerat arrive, Gervaise repeated,
faintly:

"He's gone. /Mon Dieu!/ Four days' dancing and yelling--"

Then the two sisters could not do otherwise than pull out their
handkerchiefs. Their brother had had many faults, but after all he was
their brother. Boche shrugged his shoulders and said, loud enough to
be heard by everyone:

"Bah! It's a drunkard the less."

From that day, as Gervaise often got a bit befuddled, one of the
amusements of the house was to see her imitate Coupeau. It was no
longer necessary to press her; she gave the performance gratis, her
hands and feet trembling as she uttered little involuntary shrieks.
She must have caught this habit at Sainte-Anne from watching her
husband too long.

Gervaise lasted in this state several months. She fell lower and lower
still, submitting to the grossest outrages and dying of starvation a
little every day. As soon as she had four sous she drank and pounded
on the walls. She was employed on all the dirty errands of the
neighborhood. Once they even bet her she wouldn't eat filth, but she
did it in order to earn ten sous. Monsieur Marescot had decided to
turn her out of her room on the sixth floor. But, as Pere Bru had just
been found dead in his cubbyhole under the staircase, the landlord had
allowed her to turn into it. Now she roosted there in the place of
Pere Bru. It was inside there, on some straw, that her teeth
chattered, whilst her stomach was empty and her bones were frozen. The
earth would not have her apparently. She was becoming idiotic. She did
not even think of making an end of herself by jumping out of the sixth
floor window on to the pavement of the courtyard below. Death had to
take her little by little, bit by bit, dragging her thus to the end
through the accursed existence she had made for herself. It was never
even exactly known what she did die of. There was some talk of a cold,
but the truth was she died of privation and of the filth and hardship
of her ruined life. Overeating and dissoluteness killed her, according
to the Lorilleuxs. One morning, as there was a bad smell in the
passage, it was remembered that she had not been seen for two days,
and she was discovered already green in her hole.

It happened to be old Bazouge who came with the pauper's coffin under
his arm to pack her up. He was again precious drunk that day, but a
jolly fellow all the same, and as lively as a cricket. When he
recognized the customer he had to deal with he uttered several
philosophical reflections, whilst performing his little business.

"Everyone has to go. There's no occasion for jostling, there's room
for everyone. And it's stupid being in a hurry that just slows you up.
All I want to do is to please everybody. Some will, others won't.
What's the result? Here's one who wouldn't, then she would. So she was
made to wait. Anyhow, it's all right now, and faith! She's earned it!
Merrily, just take it easy."

And when he took hold of Gervaise in his big, dirty hands, he was
seized with emotion, and he gently raised this woman who had had so
great a longing for his attentions. Then, as he laid her out with
paternal care at the bottom of the coffin, he stuttered between two
hiccoughs:

"You know--now listen--it's me, Bibi-the-Gay, called the ladies'
consoler. There, you're happy now. Go by-by, my beauty!"


                               THE END





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