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<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of L'Assommoir, by Émile Zola</div>
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<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: L'Assommoir</div>
<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Émile Zola</div>
<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Translator: John Stirling</div>
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<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK L'ASSOMMOIR ***</div>

<h1>L'ASSOMMOIR</h1>

<h2 class="no-break">by Émile Zola</h2>

<hr />

<div class="chapter">

<h2>CHAPTER I<br/>
GERVAISE</h2>

<p>
Gervaise had waited and watched for Lantier until two in the
morning. Then chilled and shivering, she turned from the window
and threw herself across the bed, where she fell into a feverish
doze with her cheeks wet with tears. For the last week when they
came out of the Veau à Deux Têtes, where they ate,
he had sent her off to bed with the children and had not appeared
until late into the night and always with a story that he had
been looking for work.
</p>

<p>This very night, while she was watching for his return, she
fancied she saw him enter the ballroom of the Grand-Balcon, whose
ten windows blazing with lights illuminated, as with a sheet of
fire, the black lines of the outer boulevards. She caught a
glimpse of Adèle, a pretty brunette who dined at their
restaurant and who was walking a few steps behind him, with her
hands swinging as if she had just dropped his arm, rather than
pass before the bright light of the globes over the door in his
company.</p>

<p>When Gervaise awoke about five o'clock, stiff and sore, she
burst into wild sobs, for Lantier had not come in. For the first
time he had slept out. She sat on the edge of the bed, half
shrouded in the canopy of faded chintz that hung from the arrow
fastened to the ceiling by a string. Slowly, with her eyes
suffused with tears, she looked around this miserable <i>chambre
garnie</i>, whose furniture consisted of a chestnut bureau of
which one drawer was absent, three straw chairs and a greasy
table on which was a broken-handled pitcher.</p>

<p>Another bedstead&mdash;an iron one&mdash;had been brought in
for the children. This stood in front of the bureau and filled up
two thirds of the room.</p>

<p>A trunk belonging to Gervaise and Lantier stood in the corner
wide open, showing its empty sides, while at the bottom a man's
old hat lay among soiled shirts and hose. Along the walls and on
the backs of the chairs hung a ragged shawl, a pair of muddy
pantaloons and a dress or two&mdash;all too bad for the
old-clothes man to buy. In the middle of the mantel between two
mismated tin candlesticks was a bundle of pawn tickets from the
Mont-de-Piété. These tickets were of a delicate
shade of rose.</p>

<p>The room was the best in the hotel&mdash;the first floor
looking out on the boulevard.</p>

<p>Meanwhile side by side on the same pillow the two children lay
calmly sleeping. Claude, who was eight years old, was breathing
calmly and regularly with his little hands outside of the
coverings, while Etienne, only four, smiled with one arm under
his brother's neck.</p>

<p>When their mother's eyes fell on them she had a new paroxysm
of sobs and pressed her handkerchief to her mouth to stifle them.
Then with bare feet, not stopping to put on her slippers which
had fallen off, she ran to the window out of which she leaned as
she had done half the night and inspected the sidewalks as far as
she could see.</p>

<p>The hotel was on the Boulevard de la Chapelle, at the left of
the Barrière Poissonnièrs. It was a two-story
building, painted a deep red up to the first floor, and had
disjointed weather-stained blinds.</p>

<p>Above a lantern with glass sides was a sign between the two
windows:</p>

<p class="center">
HÔTEL BONCŒUR<br/>
KEPT BY<br/>
MARSOULLIER</p>

<p>in large yellow letters, partially obliterated by the
dampness. Gervaise, who was prevented by the lantern from seeing
as she desired, leaned out still farther, with her handkerchief
on her lips. She looked to the right toward the Boulevard de
Rochechouart, where groups of butchers stood with their bloody
frocks before their establishments, and the fresh breeze brought
in whiffs, a strong animal smell&mdash;the smell of slaughtered
cattle.</p>

<p>She looked to the left, following the ribbonlike avenue, past
the Hospital de Lariboisière, then building. Slowly, from
one end to the other of the horizon, did she follow the wall,
from behind which in the nightime she had heard strange groans
and cries, as if some fell murder were being perpetrated. She
looked at it with horror, as if in some dark corner&mdash;dark
with dampness and filth&mdash;she should distinguish
Lantier&mdash;Lantier lying dead with his throat cut.</p>

<p>Suddenly Gervaise thought she distinguished Lantier amid this
crowd, and she leaned eagerly forward at the risk of falling from
the window. With a fresh pang of disappointment she pressed her
handkerchief to her lips to restrain her sobs.</p>

<p>A fresh, youthful voice caused her to turn around.</p>

<p>"Lantier has not come in then?"</p>

<p>"No, Monsieur Coupeau," she answered, trying to smile.</p>

<p>The speaker was a tinsmith who occupied a tiny room at the top
of the house. His bag of tools was over his shoulder; he had seen
the key in the door and entered with the familiarity of a
friend.</p>

<p>"You know," he continued, "that I am working nowadays at the
hospital. What a May this is! The air positively stings one this
morning."</p>

<p>As he spoke he looked closely at Gervaise; he saw her eyes
were red with tears and then, glancing at the bed, discovered
that it had not been disturbed. He shook his head and, going
toward the couch where the children lay with their rosy cherub
faces, he said in a lower voice:</p>

<p>"You think your husband ought to have been with you, madame.
But don't be troubled; he is busy with politics. He went on like
a mad man the other day when they were voting for Eugène Sue.
Perhaps he passed the night with his friends abusing that
reprobate Bonaparte."</p>

<p>"No, no," she murmured with an effort. "You think nothing of
that kind I know where Lantier is only too well. We have our
sorrows like the rest of the world!"</p>

<p>Coupeau gave a knowing wink and departed, having offered to
bring her some milk if she did not care to go out; she was a good
woman, he told her and might count on him any time when she was
in trouble.</p>

<p>As soon as Gervaise was alone she returned to the window.</p>

<p>From the Barrière the lowing of the cattle and the
bleating of the sheep still came on the keen, fresh morning air.
Among the crowd she recognized the locksmiths by their blue
frocks, the masons by their white overalls, the painters by their
coats, from under which hung their blouses. This crowd was
cheerless. All of neutral tints&mdash;grays and blues
predominating, with never a dash of color. Occasionally a workman
stopped and lighted his pipe, while his companions passed on.
There was no laughing, no talking, but they strode on steadily
with cadaverous faces toward that Paris which quickly swallowed
them up.</p>

<p>At the two corners of La Rue des Poissonnièrs were two
wineshops, where the shutters had just been taken down. Here some
of the workmen lingered, crowding into the shop, spitting,
coughing and drinking glasses of brandy and water. Gervaise was
watching the place on the left of the street, where she thought
she had seen Lantier go in, when a stout woman, bareheaded and
wearing a large apron, called to her from the pavement,</p>

<p>"You are up early, Madame Lantier!"</p>

<p>Gervaise leaned out.</p>

<p>"Ah, is it you, Madame Boche! Yes, I am up early, for I have
much to do today."</p>

<p>"Is that so? Well, things don't get done by themselves, that's
sure!"</p>

<p>And a conversation ensued between the window and the sidewalk.
Mme Boche was the concierge of the house wherein the restaurant
Veau à Deux Têtes occupied the
<i>rez-de-chaussée</i>.</p>

<p>Many times Gervaise had waited for Lantier in the room of this
woman rather than face the men who were eating. The concierge
said she had just been round the corner to arouse a lazy fellow
who had promised to do some work and then went on to speak of one
of her lodgers who had come in the night before with some woman
and had made such a noise that every one was disturbed until
after three o'clock.</p>

<p>As she gabbled, however, she examined Gervaise with
considerable curiosity and seemed, in fact, to have come out
under the window for that express purpose.</p>

<p>"Is Monsieur Lantier still asleep?" she asked suddenly.</p>

<p>"Yes, he is asleep," answered Gervaise with flushing
cheeks.</p>

<p>Madame saw the tears come to her eyes and, satisfied with her
discovery, was turning away when she suddenly stopped and called
out:</p>

<p>"You are going to the lavatory this morning, are you not? All
right then, I have some things to wash, and I will keep a place
for you next to me, and we can have a little talk!"</p>

<p>Then as if moved by sudden compassion, she added:</p>

<p>"Poor child, don't stay at that window any longer. You are
purple with cold and will surely make yourself sick!"</p>

<p>But Gervaise did not move. She remained in the same spot for
two mortal hours, until the clock struck eight. The shops were
now all open. The procession in blouses had long ceased, and only
an occasional one hurried along. At the wineshops, however, there
was the same crowd of men drinking, spitting and coughing. The
workmen in the street had given place to the workwomen.
Milliners' apprentices, florists, burnishers, who with thin
shawls drawn closely around them came in bands of three or four,
talking eagerly, with gay laughs and quick glances. Occasionally
one solitary figure was seen, a pale-faced, serious woman, who
walked rapidly, neither looking to the right nor to the left.</p>

<p>Then came the clerks, blowing on their fingers to warm them,
eating a roll as they walked; young men, lean and tall, with
clothing they had outgrown and with eyes heavy with sleep; old
men, who moved along with measured steps, occasionally pulling
out their watches, but able, from many years' practice, to time
their movements almost to a second.</p>

<p>The boulevards at last were comparatively quiet. The
inhabitants were sunning themselves. Women with untidy hair and
soiled petticoats were nursing their babies in the open air, and
an occasional dirty-faced brat fell into the gutter or rolled
over with shrieks of pain or joy.</p>

<p>Gervaise felt faint and ill; all hope was gone. It seemed to
her that all was over and that Lantier would come no more. She
looked from the dingy slaughterhouses, black with their dirt and
loathsome odor, on to the new and staring hospital and into the
rooms consecrated to disease and death. As yet the windows were
not in, and there was nothing to impede her view of the large,
empty wards. The sun shone directly in her face and blinded
her.</p>

<p>She was sitting on a chair with her arms dropping drearily at
her side but not weeping, when Lantier quietly opened the door
and walked in.</p>

<p>"You have come!" she cried, ready to throw herself on his
neck.</p>

<p>"Yes, I have come," he answered, "and what of it? Don't begin
any of your nonsense now!" And he pushed her aside. Then with an
angry gesture he tossed his felt hat on the bureau.</p>

<p>He was a small, dark fellow, handsome and well made, with a
delicate mustache which he twisted in his fingers mechanically as
he spoke. He wore an old coat, buttoned tightly at the waist, and
spoke with a strongly marked Provencal accent.</p>

<p>Gervaise had dropped upon her chair again and uttered
disjointed phrases of lamentation.</p>

<p>"I have not closed my eyes&mdash;I thought you were killed!
Where have you been all night? I feel as if I were going mad!
Tell me, Auguste, where have you been?"</p>

<p>"Oh, I had business," he answered with an indifferent shrug of
his shoulders. "At eight o'clock I had an engagement with that
friend, you know, who is thinking of starting a manufactory of
hats. I was detained, and I preferred stopping there. But you
know I don't like to be watched and catechized. Just let me
alone, will you?"</p>

<p>His wife began to sob. Their voices and Lantier's noisy
movements as he pushed the chairs about woke the children. They
started up, half naked with tumbled hair, and hearing their
mother cry, they followed her example, rending the air with their
shrieks.</p>

<p>"Well, this is lovely music!" cried Lantier furiously. "I warn
you, if you don't all stop, that out of this door I go, and you
won't see me again in a hurry! Will you hold your tongue? Good-by
then; I'll go back where I came from."</p>

<p>He snatched up his hat, but Gervaise rushed toward him,
crying:</p>

<p>"No! No!"</p>

<p>And she soothed the children and stifled their cries with
kisses and laid them tenderly back in their bed, and they were
soon happy and merrily playing together. Meanwhile the father,
not even taking off his boots, threw himself on the bed with a
weary air. His face was white from exhaustion and a sleepless
night; he did not close his eyes but looked around the room.</p>

<p>"A nice-looking place, this!" he muttered.</p>

<p>Then examining Gervaise, he said half aloud and half to
himself:</p>

<p>"So! You have given up washing yourself, it seems!"</p>

<p>Gervaise was only twenty-two. She was tall and slender with
delicate features, already worn by hardships and anxieties. With
her hair uncombed and shoes down at the heel, shivering in her
white sack, on which was much dust and many stains from the
furniture and wall where it had hung, she looked at least ten
years older from the hours of suspense and tears she had
passed.</p>

<p>Lantier's word startled her from her resignation and
timidity.</p>

<p>"Are you not ashamed?" she said with considerable animation.
"You know very well that I do all I can. It is not my fault that
we came here. I should like to see you with two children in a
place where you can't get a drop of hot water. We ought as soon
as we reached Paris to have settled ourselves at once in a home;
that was what you promised."</p>

<p>"Pshaw," he muttered; "You had as much good as I had out of
our savings. You ate the fatted calf with me&mdash;and it is not
worth while to make a row about it now!"</p>

<p>She did not heed his word but continued:</p>

<p>"There is no need of giving up either. I saw Madame
Fauconnier, the laundress in La Rue Neuve. She will take me
Monday. If you go in with your friend we shall be afloat again in
six months. We must find some kind of a hole where we can live
cheaply while we work. That is the thing to do now. Work!
Work!"</p>

<p>Lantier turned his face to the wall with a shrug of disgust
which enraged his wife, who resumed:</p>

<p>"Yes, I know very well that you don't like to work. You would
like to wear fine clothes and walk about the streets all day. You
don't like my looks since you took all my dresses to the
pawnbrokers. No, no, Auguste, I did not intend to speak to you
about it, but I know very well where you spent the night. I saw
you go into the Grand-Balcon with that streetwalker Adèle.
You have made a charming choice. She wears fine clothes and is
clean. Yes, and she has reason to be, certainly; there is not a
man in that restaurant who does not know her far better than an
honest girl should be known!"</p>

<p>Lantier leaped from the bed. His eyes were as black as night
and his face deadly pale.</p>

<p>"Yes," repeated his wife, "I mean what I say. Madame Boche
will not keep her or her sister in the house any longer, because
there are always a crowd of men hanging on the staircase."</p>

<p>Lantier lifted both fists, and then conquering a violent
desire to beat her, he seized her in his arms, shook her
violently and threw her on the bed where the children were. They
at once began to cry again while he stood for a moment, and then,
with the air of a man who finally takes a resolution in regard to
which he has hesitated, he said:</p>

<p>"You do not know what you have done, Gervaise. You are
wrong&mdash;as you will soon discover."</p>

<p>For a moment the voices of the children filled the room. Their
mother, lying on their narrow couch, held them both in her arms
and said over and over again in a monotonous voice:</p>

<p>"If you were not here, my poor darlings! If you were not here!
If you were not here!"</p>

<p>Lantier was lying flat on his back with his eyes fixed on the
ceiling. He was not listening; his attention was concentrated on
some fixed idea. He remained in this way for an hour and more,
not sleeping, in spite of his evident and intense fatigue. When
he turned and, leaning on his elbow, looked about the room again,
he found that Gervaise had arranged the chamber and made the
children's bed. They were washed and dressed. He watched her as
she swept the room and dusted the furniture.</p>

<p>The room was very dreary still, however, with its
smoke-stained ceiling and paper discolored by dampness and three
chairs and dilapidated bureau, whose greasy surface no dusting
could clean. Then while she washed herself and arranged her hair
before the small mirror, he seemed to examine her arms and
shoulders, as if instituting a comparison between herself and
someone else. And he smiled a disdainful little smile.</p>

<p>Gervaise was slightly, very slightly, lame, but her lameness
was perceptible, only on such days as she was very tired. This
morning, so weary was she from the watches of the night, that she
could hardly walk without support.</p>

<p>A profound silence reigned in the room; they did not speak to
each other. He seemed to be waiting for something. She, adopting
an unconcerned air, seemed to be in haste.</p>

<p>She made up a bundle of soiled linen that had been thrown into
a corner behind the trunk, and then he spoke:</p>

<p>"What are you doing? Are you going out?"</p>

<p>At first she did not reply. Then when he angrily repeated the
question she answered:</p>

<p>"Certainly I am. I am going to wash all these things. The
children cannot live in dirt."</p>

<p>He threw two or three handkerchiefs toward her, and after
another long silence he said:</p>

<p>"Have you any money?"</p>

<p>She quickly rose to her feet and turned toward him; in her
hand she held some of the soiled clothes.</p>

<p>"Money! Where should I get money unless I had stolen it? You
know very well that day before yesterday you got three francs on
my black skirt. We have breakfasted twice on that, and money goes
fast. No, I have no money. I have four sous for the lavatory. I
cannot make money like other women we know."</p>

<p>He did not reply to this allusion but rose from the bed and
passed in review the ragged garments hung around the room. He
ended by taking down the pantaloons and the shawl and, opening
the bureau, took out a sack and two chemises. All these he made
into a bundle, which he threw at Gervaise.</p>

<p>"Take them," he said, "and make haste back from the
pawnbroker's."</p>

<p>"Would you not like me to take the children?" she asked.
"Heavens! If pawnbrokers would only make loans on children, what
a good thing it would be!"</p>

<p>She went to the Mont-de-Piété, and when she
returned a half-hour later she laid a silver five-franc piece on
the mantelshelf and placed the ticket with the others between the
two candlesticks.</p>

<p>"This is what they gave me," she said coldly. "I wanted six
francs, but they would not give them. They always keep on the
safe side there, and yet there is always a crowd."</p>

<p>Lantier did not at once take up the money. He had sent her to
the Mont-de-Piété that he might not leave her
without food or money, but when he caught sight of part of a ham
wrapped in paper on the table with half a loaf of bread he
slipped the silver piece into his vest pocket.</p>

<p>"I did not dare go to the milk woman," explained Gervaise,
"because we owe her for eight days. But I shall be back early.
You can get some bread and some chops and have them ready. Don't
forget the wine too."</p>

<p>He made no reply. Peace seemed to be made, but when Gervaise
went to the trunk to take out some of Lantier's clothing he
called out:</p>

<p>"No&mdash;let that alone."</p>

<p>"What do you mean?" she said, turning round in surprise. "You
can't wear these things again until they are washed! Why shall I
not take them?"</p>

<p>And she looked at him with some anxiety. He angrily tore the
things from her hands and threw them back into the trunk.</p>

<p>"Confound you!" he muttered. "Will you never learn to obey?
When I say a thing I mean it&mdash;"</p>

<p>"But why?" she repeated, turning very pale and seized with a
terrible suspicion. "You do not need these shirts; you are not
going away. Why should I not take them?"</p>

<p>He hesitated a moment, uneasy under the earnest gaze she fixed
upon him. "Why? Why? Because," he said, "I am sick of hearing you
say that you wash and mend for me. Attend to your own affairs,
and I will attend to mine."</p>

<p>She entreated him, defended herself from the charge of ever
having complained, but he shut the trunk with a loud bang and
then sat down upon it, repeating that he was master at least of
his own clothing. Then to escape from her eyes, he threw himself
again on the bed, saying he was sleepy and that she made his head
ache, and finally slept or pretended to do so.</p>

<p>Gervaise hesitated; she was tempted to give up her plan of
going to the lavatory and thought she would sit down to her
sewing. But at last she was reassured by Lantier's regular
breathing; she took her soap and her ball of bluing and, going to
the children, who were playing on the floor with some old corks,
she said in a low voice:</p>

<p>"Be very good and keep quiet. Papa is sleeping."</p>

<p>When she left the room there was not a sound except the
stifled laughter of the little ones. It was then after ten, and
the sun was shining brightly in at the window.</p>

<p>Gervaise, on reaching the boulevard, turned to the left and
followed the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. As she passed Mme
Fauconnier's shop she nodded to the woman. The lavatory, whither
she went, was in the middle of this street, just where it begins
to ascend. Over a large low building towered three enormous
reservoirs for water, huge cylinders of zinc strongly made, and
in the rear was the drying room, an apartment with a very high
ceiling and surrounded by blinds through which the air passed. On
the right of the reservoirs a steam engine let off regular puffs
of white smoke. Gervaise, habituated apparently to puddles, did
not lift her skirts but threaded her way through the part of
<i>eau de Javelle</i> which encumbered the doorway. She knew the
mistress of the establishment, a delicate woman who sat in a
cabinet with glass doors, surrounded by soap and bluing and
packages of bicarbonate of soda.</p>

<p>As Gervaise passed the desk she asked for her brush and
beater, which she had left to be taken care of after her last
wash. Then having taken her number, she went in. It was an
immense shed, as it were, with a low ceiling&mdash;the beams and
rafters unconcealed&mdash;and lighted by large windows, through
which the daylight streamed. A light gray mist or steam pervaded
the room, which was filled with a smell of soapsuds and <i>eau de
Javelle</i> combined. Along the central aisle were tubs on either
side, and two rows of women with their arms bare to the shoulders
and their skirts tucked up stood showing their colored stockings
and stout laced shoes.</p>

<p>They rubbed and pounded furiously, straightening themselves
occasionally to utter a sentence and then applying themselves
again to their task, with the steam and perspiration pouring down
their red faces. There was a constant rush of water from the
faucets, a great splashing as the clothes were rinsed and
pounding and banging of the beaters, while amid all this noise
the steam engine in the corner kept up its regular puffing.</p>

<p>Gervaise went slowly up the aisle, looking to the right and
the left. She carried her bundle under her arm and limped more
than usual, as she was pushed and jarred by the energy of the
women about her.</p>

<p>"Here! This way, my dear," cried Mme Boche, and when the young
woman had joined her at the very end where she stood, the
concierge, without stopping her furious rubbing, began to talk in
a steady fashion.</p>

<p>"Yes, this is your place. I have kept it for you. I have not
much to do. Boche is never hard on his linen, and you, too, do
not seem to have much. Your package is quite small. We shall
finish by noon, and then we can get something to eat. I used to
give my clothes to a woman in La Rue Pelat, but bless my heart,
she washed and pounded them all away, and I made up my mind to
wash myself. It is clear gain, you see, and costs only the
soap."</p>

<p>Gervaise opened her bundle and sorted the clothes, laying
aside all the colored pieces, and when Mme Boche advised her to
try a little soda she shook her head.</p>

<p>"No, no!" she said. "I know all about it!"</p>

<p>"You know?" answered Boche curiously. "You have washed then in
your own place before you came here?"</p>

<p>Gervaise, with her sleeves rolled up, showing her pretty, fair
arms, was soaping a child's shirt. She rubbed it and turned it,
soaped and rubbed it again. Before she answered she took up her
beater and began to use it, accenting each phrase or rather
punctuating them with her regular blows.</p>

<p>"Yes, yes, washed&mdash;I should think I had! Ever since I was
ten years old. We went to the riverside, where I came from. It
was much nicer than here. I wish you could see it&mdash;a pretty
corner under the trees by the running water. Do you know
Plassans? Near Marseilles?"</p>

<p>"You are a strong one, anyhow!" cried Mme Boche, astonished at
the rapidity and strength of the woman. "Your arms are slender,
but they are like iron."</p>

<p>The conversation continued until all the linen was well beaten
and yet whole! Gervaise then took each piece separately, rinsed
it, then rubbed it with soap and brushed it. That is to say, she
held the cloth firmly with one hand and with the other moved the
short brush from her, pushing along a dirty foam which fell off
into the water below.</p>

<p>As she brushed they talked.</p>

<p>"No, we are not married," said Gervaise. "I do not intend to
lie about it. Lantier is not so nice that a woman need be very
anxious to be his wife. If it were not for the children! I was
fourteen and he was eighteen when the first one was born. The
other child did not come for four years. I was not happy at home.
Papa Macquart, for the merest trifle, would beat me. I might have
married, I suppose."</p>

<p>She dried her hands, which were red under the white
soapsuds.</p>

<p>"The water is very hard in Paris," she said.</p>

<p>Mme Boche had finished her work long before, but she continued
to dabble in the water merely as an excuse to hear this story,
which for two weeks had excited her curiosity. Her mouth was
open, and her eyes were shining with satisfaction at having
guessed so well.</p>

<p>"Oh yes, just as I knew," she said to herself, "but the little
woman talks too much! I was sure, though, there had been a
quarrel."</p>

<p>Then aloud:</p>

<p>"He is not good to you then?"</p>

<p>"He was very good to me once," answered Gervaise, "but since
we came to Paris he has changed. His mother died last year and
left him about seventeen hundred francs. He wished to come to
Paris, and as Father Macquart was in the habit of hitting me in
the face without any warning, I said I would come, too, which we
did, with the two children. I meant to be a fine laundress, and
he was to continue with his trade as a hatter. We might have been
very happy. But, you see, Lantier is extravagant; he likes
expensive things and thinks of his amusement before anything
else. He is not good for much, anyhow!</p>

<p>"We arrived at the Hôtel Montmartre. We had dinners and
carriages, suppers and theaters, a watch for him, a silk dress
for me&mdash;for he is not selfish when he has money. You can
easily imagine, therefore, at the end of two months we were
cleaned out. Then it was that we came to Hôtel Boncœur and
that this life began." She checked herself with a strange choking
in the throat. Tears gathered in her eyes. She finished brushing
her linen.</p>

<p>"I must get my scalding water," she murmured.</p>

<p>But Mme Boche, much annoyed at this sudden interruption to the
long-desired confidence, called the boy.</p>

<p>"Charles," she said, "it would be very good of you if you
would bring a pail of hot water to Madame Lantier, as she is in a
great hurry." The boy brought a bucketful, and Gervaise paid him
a sou. It was a sou for each bucket. She turned the hot water
into her tub and soaked her linen once more and rubbed it with
her hands while the steam hovered round her blonde head like a
cloud.</p>

<p>"Here, take some of this," said the concierge as she emptied
into the water that Gervaise was using the remains of a package
of bicarbonate of soda. She offered her also some <i>eau de
Javelle</i>, but the young woman refused. It was only good, she
said, for grease spots and wine stains.</p>

<p>"I thought him somewhat dissipated," said Mme Boche, referring
to Lantier without naming him.</p>

<p>Gervaise, leaning over her tub and her arms up to the elbows
in the soapsuds, nodded in acquiescence.</p>

<p>"Yes," continued the concierge, "I have seen many little
things." But she started back as Gervaise turned round with a
pale face and quivering lips.</p>

<p>"Oh, I know nothing," she continued. "He likes to
laugh&mdash;that is all&mdash;and those two girls who are with
us, you know, Adèle and Virginie, like to laugh too, so
they have their little jokes together, but that is all there is
of it, I am sure."</p>

<p>The young woman, with the perspiration standing on her brow
and her arms still dripping, looked her full in the face with
earnest, inquiring eyes.</p>

<p>Then the concierge became excited and struck her breast,
exclaiming:</p>

<p>"I tell you I know nothing whatever, nothing more than I tell
you!"</p>

<p>Then she added in a gentle voice, "But he has honest eyes, my
dear. He will marry you, child; I promise that he will marry
you!"</p>

<p>Gervaise dried her forehead with her damp hand and shook her
head. The two women were silent for a moment; around them, too,
it was very quiet. The clock struck eleven. Many of the women
were seated swinging their feet, drinking their wine and eating
their sausages, sandwiched between slices of bread. An occasional
economical housewife hurried in with a small bundle under her
arm, and a few sounds of the pounder were still heard at
intervals; sentences were smothered in the full mouths, or a
laugh was uttered, ending in a gurgling sound as the wine was
swallowed, while the great machine puffed steadily on. Not one of
the women, however, heard it; it was like the very respiration of
the lavatory&mdash;the eager breath that drove up among the
rafters the floating vapor that filled the room.</p>

<p>The heat gradually became intolerable. The sun shone in on the
left through the high windows, imparting to the vapor opaline
tints&mdash;the palest rose and tender blue, fading into soft
grays. When the women began to grumble the boy Charles went from
one window to the other, drawing down the heavy linen shades.
Then he crossed to the other side, the shady side, and opened the
blinds. There was a general exclamation of joy&mdash;a formidable
explosion of gaiety.</p>

<p>All this time Gervaise was going on with her task and had just
completed the washing of her colored pieces, which she threw over
a trestle to drip; soon small pools of blue water stood on the
floor. Then she began to rinse the garments in cold water which
ran from a spigot near by.</p>

<p>"You have nearly finished," said Mme Boche. "I am waiting to
help you wring them."</p>

<p>"Oh, you are very good! It is not necessary though!" answered
the young woman as she swashed the garments through the clear
water. "If I had sheets I would not refuse your offer,
however."</p>

<p>Nevertheless, she accepted the aid of the concierge. They took
up a brown woolen skirt, badly faded, from which poured out a
yellow stream as the two women wrung it together.</p>

<p>Suddenly Mme Boche cried out:</p>

<p>"Look! There comes big Virginie! She is actually coming here
to wash her rags tied up in a handkerchief."</p>

<p>Gervaise looked up quickly. Virginie was a woman about her own
age, larger and taller than herself, a brunette and pretty in
spite of the elongated oval of her face. She wore an old black
dress with flounces and a red ribbon at her throat. Her hair was
carefully arranged and massed in a blue chenille net.</p>

<p>She hesitated a moment in the center aisle and half shut her
eyes, as if looking for something or somebody, but when she
distinguished Gervaise she went toward her with a haughty,
insolent air and supercilious smile and finally established
herself only a short distance from her.</p>

<p>"That is a new notion!" muttered Mme Boche in a low voice.
"She was never known before to rub out even a pair of cuffs. She
is a lazy creature, I do assure you. She never sews the buttons
on her boots. She is just like her sister, that minx of an
Adèle, who stays away from the shop two days out of three.
What is she rubbing now? A skirt, is it? It is dirty enough, I am
sure!"</p>

<p>It was clear that Mme Boche wished to please Gervaise. The
truth was she often took coffee with Adèle and Virginie
when the two sisters were in funds. Gervaise did not reply but
worked faster than before. She was now preparing her bluing water
in a small tub standing on three legs. She dipped in her pieces,
shook them about in the colored water, which was almost a lake in
hue, and then, wringing them, she shook them out and threw them
lightly over the high wooden bars.</p>

<p>While she did this she kept her back well turned on big
Virginie. But she felt that the girl was looking at her, and she
heard an occasional derisive sniff. Virginie, in fact, seemed to
have come there to provoke her, and when Gervaise turned around
the two women fixed their eyes on each other.</p>

<p>"Let her be," murmured Mme Boche. "She is not the one, now I
tell you!"</p>

<p>At this moment, as Gervaise was shaking her last piece of
linen, she heard laughing and talking at the door of the
lavatory.</p>

<p>"Two children are here asking for their mother!" cried
Charles.</p>

<p>All the women looked around, and Gervaise recognized Claude
and Etienne. As soon as they saw her they ran toward her,
splashing through the puddle's, their untied shoes half off and
Claude, the eldest, dragging his little brother by the hand.</p>

<p>The women as they passed uttered kindly exclamations of pity,
for the children were evidently frightened. They clutched their
mother's skirts and buried their pretty blond heads.</p>

<p>"Did Papa send you?" asked Gervaise.</p>

<p>But as she stooped to tie Etienne's shoes she saw on Claude's
finger the key of her room with its copper tag and number.</p>

<p>"Did you bring the key?" she exclaimed in great surprise. "And
why, pray?"</p>

<p>The child looked down on the key hanging on his finger, which
he had apparently forgotten. This seemed to remind him of
something, and he said in a clear, shrill voice:</p>

<p>"Papa is gone!"</p>

<p>"He went to buy your breakfast, did he not? And he told you to
come and look for me here, I suppose?"</p>

<p>Claude looked at his brother and hesitated. Then he
exclaimed:</p>

<p>"Papa has gone, I say. He jumped from the bed, put his things
in his trunk, and then he carried his trunk downstairs and put it
on a carriage. We saw him&mdash;he has gone!"</p>

<p>Gervaise was kneeling, tying the boy's shoe. She rose slowly
with a very white face and with her hands pressed to either
temple, as if she were afraid of her head cracking open. She
could say nothing but the same words over and over again:</p>

<p>"Great God! Great God! Great God!"</p>

<p>Mme Boche, in her turn, interrogated the child eagerly, for
she was charmed at finding herself an actor, as it were, in this
drama.</p>

<p>"Tell us all about it, my dear. He locked the door, did he?
And then he told you to bring the key here?" And then, lowering
her voice, she whispered in the child's ear:</p>

<p>"Was there a lady in the carriage?" she asked.</p>

<p>The child looked troubled for a moment but speedily began his
story again with a triumphant air.</p>

<p>"He jumped off the bed, put his things in the trunk, and he
went away."</p>

<p>Then as Mme Boche made no attempt to detain him, he drew his
brother to the faucet, where the two amused themselves in making
the water run.</p>

<p>Gervaise could not weep. She felt as if she were stifling. She
covered her face with her hands and turned toward the wall. A
sharp, nervous trembling shook her from head to foot. An
occasional sobbing sigh or, rather, gasp escaped from her lips,
while she pressed her clenched hands more tightly on her eyes, as
if to increase the darkness of the abyss in which she felt
herself to have fallen.</p>

<p>"Come! Come, my child!" muttered Mme Boche.</p>

<p>"If you knew! If you only knew all!" answered Gervaise. "Only
this very morning he made me carry my shawl and my chemises to
the Mont-de-Piété, and that was the money he had
for the carriage."</p>

<p>And the tears rushed to her eyes. The recollection of her
visit to the pawnbroker's, of her hasty return with the money in
her hand, seemed to let loose the sobs that strangled her and was
the one drop too much. Tears streamed from her eyes and poured
down her face. She did not think of wiping them away.</p>

<p>"Be reasonable, child! Be quiet," whispered Mme Boche. "They
are all looking at you. Is it possible you can care so much for
any man? You love him still, although such a little while ago you
pretended you did not care for him, and you cry as if your heart
would break! Oh lord, what fools we women are!"</p>

<p>Then in a maternal tone she added:</p>

<p>"And such a pretty little woman as you are too. But now I may
as well tell you the whole, I suppose? Well then, you remember
when I was talking to you from the sidewalk and you were at your
window? I knew then that it was Lantier who came in with
Adèle. I did not see his face, but I knew his coat, and
Boche watched and saw him come downstairs this morning. But he
was with Adèle, you understand. There is another person
who comes to see Virginie twice a week."</p>

<p>She stopped for a moment to take breath and then went on in a
lower tone still.</p>

<p>"Take care! She is laughing at you&mdash;the heartless little
cat! I bet all her washing is a sham. She has seen her sister and
Lantier well off and then came here to find out how you would
take it."</p>

<p>Gervaise took her hands down from her face and looked around.
When she saw Virginie talking and laughing with two or three
women a wild tempest of rage shook her from head to foot. She
stooped with her arms extended, as if feeling for something, and
moved along slowly for a step or two, then snatched up a bucket
of soapsuds and threw it at Virginie.</p>

<p>"You devil! Be off with you!" cried Virginie, starting back.
Only her feet were wet.</p>

<p>All the women in the lavatory hurried to the scene of action.
They jumped up on the benches, some with a piece of bread in
their hands, others with a bit of soap, and a circle of
spectators was soon formed.</p>

<p>"Yes, she is a devil!" repeated Virginie. "What has got into
the fool?" Gervaise stood motionless, her face convulsed and lips
apart. The other continued:</p>

<p>"She got tired of the country, it seems, but she left one leg
behind her, at all events."</p>

<p>The women laughed, and big Virginie, elated at her success,
went on in a louder and more triumphant tone:</p>

<p>"Come a little nearer, and I will soon settle you. You had
better have remained in the country. It is lucky for you that
your dirty soapsuds only went on my feet, for I would have taken
you over my knees and given you a good spanking if one drop had
gone in my face. What is the matter with her, anyway?" And big
Virginie addressed her audience: "Make her tell what I have done
to her! Say! Fool, what harm have I ever done to you?"</p>

<p>"You had best not talk so much," answered Gervaise almost
inaudibly; "you know very well where my husband was seen
yesterday. Now be quiet or harm will come to you. I will strangle
you&mdash;quick as a wink."</p>

<p>"Her husband, she says! Her husband! The lady's husband! As if
a looking thing like that had a husband! Is it my fault if he has
deserted her? Does she think I have stolen him? Anyway, he was
much too good for her. But tell me, some of you, was his name on
his collar? Madame has lost her husband! She will pay a good
reward, I am sure, to anyone who will carry him back!"</p>

<p>The women all laughed. Gervaise, in a low, concentrated voice,
repeated:</p>

<p>"You know very well&mdash;you know very well! Your
sister&mdash;yes, I will strangle your sister!"</p>

<p>"Oh yes, I understand," answered Virginie. "Strangle her if
you choose. What do I care? And what are you staring at me for?
Can't I wash my clothes in peace? Come, I am sick of this stuff.
Let me alone!"</p>

<p>Big Virginie turned away, and after five or six angry blows
with her beater she began again:</p>

<p>"Yes, it is my sister, and the two adore each other. You
should see them bill and coo together. He has left you with these
dirty-faced imps, and you left three others behind you with three
fathers! It was your dear Lantier who told us all that. Ah, he
had had quite enough of you&mdash;he said so!"</p>

<p>"Miserable fool!" cried Gervaise, white with anger.</p>

<p>She turned and mechanically looked around on the floor; seeing
nothing, however, but the small tub of bluing water, she threw
that in Virginie's face.</p>

<p>"She has spoiled my dress!" cried Virginie, whose shoulder and
one hand were dyed a deep blue. "You just wait a moment!" she
added as she, in her turn, snatched up a tub and dashed its
contents at Gervaise. Then ensued a most formidable battle. The
two women ran up and down the room in eager haste, looking for
full tubs, which they quickly flung in the faces of each other,
and each deluge was heralded and accompanied by a shout.</p>

<p>"Is that enough? Will that cool you off?" cried Gervaise.</p>

<p>And from Virginie:</p>

<p>"Take that! It is good to have a bath once in your life!"</p>

<p>Finally the tubs and pails were all empty, and the two women
began to draw water from the faucets. They continued their mutual
abuse while the water was running, and presently it was Virginie
who received a bucketful in her face. The water ran down her back
and over her skirts. She was stunned and bewildered, when
suddenly there came another in her left ear, knocking her head
nearly off her shoulders; her comb fell and with it her abundant
hair.</p>

<p>Gervaise was attacked about her legs. Her shoes were filled
with water, and she was drenched above her knees. Presently the
two women were deluged from head to foot; their garments stuck to
them, and they dripped like umbrellas which had been out in a
heavy shower.</p>

<p>"What fun!" said one of the laundresses as she looked on at a
safe distance.</p>

<p>The whole lavatory were immensely amused, and the women
applauded as if at a theater. The floor was covered an inch deep
with water, through which the termagants splashed. Suddenly
Virginie discovered a bucket of scalding water standing a little
apart; she caught it and threw it upon Gervaise. There was an
exclamation of horror from the lookers-on. Gervaise escaped with
only one foot slightly burned, but exasperated by the pain, she
threw a tub with all her strength at the legs of her opponent.
Virginie fell to the ground.</p>

<p>"She has broken her leg!" cried one of the spectators.</p>

<p>"She deserved it," answered another, "for the tall one tried
to scald her!"</p>

<p>"She was right, after all, if the blonde had taken away her
man!"</p>

<p>Mme Boche rent the air with her exclamations, waving her arms
frantically high above her head. She had taken the precaution to
place herself behind a rampart of tubs, with Claude and Etienne
clinging to her skirts, weeping and sobbing in a paroxysm of
terror and keeping up a cry of "Mamma! Mamma!" When she saw
Virginie prostrate on the ground she rushed to Gervaise and tried
to pull her away.</p>

<p>"Come with me!" she urged. "Do be sensible. You are growing so
angry that the Lord only knows what the end of all this will
be!"</p>

<p>But Gervaise pushed her aside, and the old woman again took
refuge behind the tubs with the children. Virginie made a spring
at the throat of her adversary and actually tried to strangle
her. Gervaise shook her off and snatched at the long braid
hanging from the girl's head and pulled it as if she hoped to
wrench it off, and the head with it.</p>

<p>The battle began again, this time silent and wordless and
literally tooth and nail. Their extended hands with fingers
stiffly crooked, caught wildly at all in their way, scratching
and tearing. The red ribbon and the chenille net worn by the
brunette were torn off; the waist of her dress was ripped from
throat to belt and showed the white skin on the shoulder.</p>

<p>Gervaise had lost a sleeve, and her chemise was torn to her
waist. Strips of clothing lay in every direction. It was Gervaise
who was first wounded. Three long scratches from her mouth to her
throat bled profusely, and she fought with her eyes shut lest she
should be blinded. As yet Virginia showed no wound. Suddenly
Gervaise seized one of her earrings&mdash;pear-shaped, of yellow
glass&mdash;she tore it out and brought blood.</p>

<p>"They will kill each other! Separate them," cried several
voices.</p>

<p>The women gathered around the combatants; the spectators were
divided into two parties&mdash;some exciting and encouraging
Gervaise and Virginie as if they had been dogs fighting, while
others, more timid, trembled, turned away their heads and said
they were faint and sick. A general battle threatened to take
place, such was the excitement.</p>

<p>Mme Boche called to the boy in charge:</p>

<p>"Charles! Charles! Where on earth can he be?"</p>

<p>Finally she discovered him, calmly looking on with his arms
folded. He was a tall youth with a big neck. He was laughing and
hugely enjoying the scene. It would be a capital joke, he
thought, if the women tore each other's clothes to rags and if
they should be compelled to finish their fight in a state of
nudity.</p>

<p>"Are you there then?" cried Mme Boche when she saw him. "Come
and help us separate them, or you can do it yourself."</p>

<p>"No, thank you," he answered quietly. "I don't propose to have
my own eyes scratched out! I am not here for that. Let them
alone! It will do them no harm to let a little of their hot blood
out!"</p>

<p>Mme Boche declared she would summon the police, but to this
the mistress of the lavatory, the delicate-looking woman with
weak eyes, strenuously objected.</p>

<p>"No, no, I will not. It would injure my house!" she said over
and over again.</p>

<p>Both women lay on the ground. Suddenly Virginie struggled up
to her knees. She had got possession of one of the beaters, which
she brandished. Her voice was hoarse and low as she muttered:</p>

<p>"This will be as good for you as for your dirty linen!"</p>

<p>Gervaise, in her turn, snatched another beater, which she held
like a club. Her voice also was hoarse and low.</p>

<p>"I will beat your skin," she muttered, "as I would my coarse
towels."</p>

<p>They knelt in front of each other in utter silence for at
least a minute, with hair streaming, eyes glaring and distended
nostrils. They each drew a long breath.</p>

<p>Gervaise struck the first blow with her beater full on the
shoulders of her adversary and then threw herself over on the
side to escape Virginie's weapon, which touched her on the
hip.</p>

<p>Thus started, they struck each other as laundresses strike
their linen, in measured cadence.</p>

<p>The women about them ceased to laugh; many went away, saying
they were faint. Those who remained watched the scene with a
cruel light in their eyes. Mme Boche had taken Claude and Etienne
to the other end of the room, whence came the dreary sound of
their sobs which were heard through the dull blows of the
beaters.</p>

<p>Suddenly Gervaise uttered a shriek. Virginie had struck her
just above the elbow on her bare arm, and the flesh began to
swell at once. She rushed at Virginie; her face was so terrible
that the spectators thought she meant to kill her.</p>

<p>"Enough! Enough!" they cried.</p>

<p>With almost superhuman strength she seized Virginie by the
waist, bent her forward with her face to the brick floor and,
notwithstanding her struggles, lifted her skirts and showed the
white and naked skin. Then she brought her beater down as she had
formerly done at Plassans under the trees on the riverside, where
her employer had washed the linen of the garrison.</p>

<p>Each blow of the beater fell on the soft flesh with a dull
thud, leaving a scarlet mark.</p>

<p>"Oh! Oh!" murmured Charles with his eyes nearly starting from
his head.</p>

<p>The women were laughing again by this time, but soon the cry
began again of "Enough! Enough!"</p>

<p>Gervaise did not even hear. She seemed entirely absorbed, as
if she were fulfilling an appointed task, and she talked with
strange, wild gaiety, recalling one of the rhymes of her
childhood:</p>

<p class="poem">
"Pan! Pan! Margot au lavoir,<br/>
Pan! Pan! à coups de battoir;<br/>
Pan! Pan! va laver son coeur,<br/>
Pan! Pan! tout noir de douleur</p>

<p>"Take that for yourself and that for your sister and this for
Lantier. And now I shall begin all over again. That is for
Lantier&mdash;that for your sister&mdash;and this for
yourself!</p>

<p class="poem">
"Pan! Pan! Margot au lavoir!<br/>
Pan! Pan! à coups de battoir."
</p>

<p>They tore Virginie from her hands. The tall brunette, weeping
and sobbing, scarlet with shame, rushed out of the room, leaving
Gervaise mistress of the field, who calmly arranged her dress
somewhat and, as her arm was stiff, begged Mme Boche to lift her
bundle of linen on her shoulder.</p>

<p>While the old woman obeyed she dilated on her emotions during
the scene that had just taken place.</p>

<p>"You ought to go to a doctor and see if something is not
broken. I heard a queer sound," she said.</p>

<p>But Gervaise did not seem to hear her and paid no attention
either to the women who crowded around her with congratulations.
She hastened to the door where her children awaited her.</p>

<p>"Two hours!" said the mistress of the establishment, already
installed in her glass cabinet. "Two hours and two sous!"</p>

<p>Gervaise mechanically laid down the two sous, and then,
limping painfully under the weight of the wet linen which was
slung over her shoulder and dripped as she moved, with her
injured arm and bleeding cheek, she went away, dragging after her
with her naked arm the still-sobbing and tear-stained Etienne and
Claude.</p>

<p>Behind her the lavatory resumed its wonted busy air, a little
gayer than usual from the excitement of the morning. The women
had eaten their bread and drunk their wine, and they splashed the
water and used their beaters with more energy than usual as they
recalled the blows dealt by Gervaise. They talked from alley to
alley, leaning over their tubs. Words and laughs were lost in the
sound of running water. The steam and mist were golden in the sun
that came in through holes in the curtain. The odor of soapsuds
grew stronger and stronger.</p>

<p>When Gervaise entered the alley which led to the Hôtel
Boncœur her tears choked her. It was a long, dark, narrow alley,
with a gutter on one side close to the wall, and the loathsome
smell brought to her mind the recollection of having passed
through there with Lantier a fortnight previous.</p>

<p>And what had that fortnight been? A succession of quarrels and
dissensions, the remembrance of which would be forevermore a
regret and bitterness.</p>

<p>Her room was empty, filled with the glowing sunlight from the
open window. This golden light rendered more apparent the
blackened ceiling and the walls with the shabby, dilapidated
paper. There was not an article beyond the furniture left in the
room, except a woman's fichu that seemed to have caught on a nail
near the chimney. The children's bed was pulled out into the
center of the room; the bureau drawers were wide open, displaying
their emptiness. Lantier had washed and had used the last of the
pomade&mdash;two cents' worth on the back of a playing
card&mdash;the dirty water in which he had washed still stood in
the basin. He had forgotten nothing; the corner hitherto occupied
by his trunk now seemed to Gervaise a vast desert. Even the small
mirror was gone. With a presentiment of evil she turned hastily
to the chimney. Yes, she was right, Lantier had carried away the
tickets. The pink papers were no longer between the
candlesticks!</p>

<p>She threw her bundle of linen into a chair and stood looking
first at one thing and then at another in a dull agony that no
tears came to relieve.</p>

<p>She had but one sou in the world. She heard a merry laugh from
her boys who, already consoled, were at the window. She went
toward them and, laying a hand on each of their heads, looked out
on that scene on which her weary eyes had dwelt so long that same
morning.</p>

<p>Yes, it was on that street that she and her children would
soon be thrown, and she turned her hopeless, despairing eyes
toward the outer boulevards&mdash;looking from right to left,
lingering at the two extremities, seized by a feeling of terror,
as if her life thenceforward was to be spent between a
slaughterhouse and a hospital.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2>CHAPTER II<br/>
GERVAISE AND COUPEAU</h2>

<p>Three weeks later, about half-past eleven one fine sunny
morning, Gervaise and Coupeau, the tinworker, were eating some
brandied fruit at the Assommoir.</p>

<p>Coupeau, who was smoking outside, had seen her as she crossed
the street with her linen and compelled her to enter. Her huge
basket was on the floor, back of the little table where they
sat.</p>

<p>Father Colombe's Tavern, known as the Assommoir, was on the
corners of the Rue des Poissonnièrs and of the Boulevard
de Rochechouart. The sign bore the one single word in long, blue
letters:</p>

<p class="center">
DISTILLATION
</p>

<p>And this word stretched from one end to the other. On either
side of the door stood tall oleanders in small casks, their
leaves covered thick with dust. The enormous counter with its
rows of glasses, its fountain and its pewter measures was on the
left of the door, and the huge room was ornamented by gigantic
casks painted bright yellow and highly varnished, hooped with
shining copper. On high shelves were bottles of liquors and jars
of fruits; all sorts of flasks standing in order concealed the
wall and repeated their pale green or deep crimson tints in the
great mirror behind the counter.</p>

<p>The great feature of the house, however, was the distilling
apparatus which stood at the back of the room behind an oak
railing on which the tipsy workmen leaned as they stupidly
watched the still with its long neck and serpentine tubes
descending to subterranean regions&mdash;a very devil's
kitchen.</p>

<p>At this early hour the Assommoir was nearly empty. A stout man
in his shirt sleeves&mdash;Father Colombe himself&mdash;was
serving a little girl not more than twelve years old with four
cents' worth of liquor in a cup.</p>

<p>The sun streamed in at the door and lay on the floor, which
was black where the men had spat as they smoked. And from the
counter, from the casks, from all the room, rose an alcoholic
emanation which seemed to intoxicate the very particles of dust
floating in the sunshine.</p>

<p>In the meantime Coupeau rolled a new cigarette. He was very
neat and clean, wearing a blouse and a little blue cloth cap and
showing his white teeth as he smiled.</p>

<p>The lower jaw was somewhat prominent and the nose slightly
flat; he had fine brown eyes and the face of a happy child and
good-natured animal. His hair was thick and curly. His complexion
was delicate still, for he was only twenty-six. Opposite him sat
Gervaise in a black gown, leaning slightly forward, finishing her
fruit, which she held by the stem.</p>

<p>They were near the street, at the first of the four tables
arranged in front of the counter. When Coupeau had lighted his
cigar he placed both elbows on the table and looked at the woman
without speaking. Her pretty face had that day something of the
delicate transparency of fine porcelain.</p>

<p>Then continuing something which they apparently had been
previously discussing, he said in a low voice:</p>

<p>"Then you say no, do you? Absolutely no?"</p>

<p>"Of course. No it must be, Monsieur Coupeau," answered
Gervaise with a smile. "Surely you do not intend to begin that
again here! You promised to be reasonable too. Had I known, I
should certainly have refused your treat."</p>

<p>He did not speak but gazed at her more intently than before
with tender boldness. He looked at her soft eyes and dewy lips,
pale at the corners but half parted, allowing one to see the rich
crimson within.</p>

<p>She returned his look with a kind and affectionate smile.
Finally she said:</p>

<p>"You should not think of such a thing. It is folly! I am an
old woman. I have a boy eight years old. What should we do
together?"</p>

<p>"Much as other people do, I suppose!" answered Coupeau with a
wink.</p>

<p>She shrugged her shoulders.</p>

<p>"You know nothing about it, Monsieur Coupeau, but I have had
some experience. I have two mouths in the house, and they have
excellent appetites. How am I to bring up my children if I trifle
away my time? Then, too, my misfortune has taught me one great
lesson, which is that the less I have to do with men, the
better!"</p>

<p>She then proceeded to explain all her reasons, calmly and
without anger. It was easy to see that her words were the result
of grave consideration.</p>

<p>Coupeau listened quietly, saying only at intervals:</p>

<p>"You are hurting my feelings. Yes, hurting my feelings."</p>

<p>"Yes, I see that," she answered, "and I am really very sorry
for you. If I had any idea of leading a different life from that
which I follow today it might as well be with you as with
another. You have the look of a good-natured man. But what is the
use? I have now been with Madame Fauconnier for a fortnight. The
children are going to school, and I am very happy, for I have
plenty to do. Don't you see, therefore, that it is best for us to
remain as we are?"</p>

<p>And she stooped to pick up her basket.</p>

<p>"You are keeping me here to talk," she said, "and they are
waiting for me at my employer's. You will find some other woman,
Monsieur Coupeau, far prettier than I, who will not have two
children to bring up!"</p>

<p>He looked at the clock and made her sit down again.</p>

<p>"Wait!" he cried. "It is still thirty-five minutes of eleven.
I have twenty-five minutes still, and don't be afraid of my
familiarity, for the table is between us! Do you dislike me so
very much that you can't stay and talk with me for five
minutes?"</p>

<p>She put down her basket, unwilling to seem disobliging, and
they talked for some time in a friendly sort of way. She had
breakfasted before she left home, and he had swallowed his soup
in the greatest haste and laid in wait for her as she came out.
Gervaise, as she listened to him, watched from the
windows&mdash;between the bottles of brandied fruit&mdash;the
movement of the crowd in the street, which at this
hour&mdash;that of the Parisian breakfast&mdash;was unusually
lively. Workmen hurried into the baker's and, coming out with a
loaf under their arms, they went into the Veau à Deux
Têtes, three doors higher up, to breakfast at six sous.
Next the baker's was a shop where fried potatoes and mussels with
parsley were sold. A constant succession of shopgirls carried off
paper parcels of fried potatoes and cups filled with mussels, and
others bought bunches of radishes. When Gervaise leaned a little
more toward the window she saw still another shop, also crowded,
from which issued a steady stream of children holding in their
hands, wrapped in paper, a breaded cutlet or a sausage, still
warm.</p>

<p>A group formed around the door of the Assommoir.</p>

<p>"Say, Bibi-la-Grillade," asked a voice, "will you stand a
drink all around?"</p>

<p>Five workmen went in, and the same voice said:</p>

<p>"Father Colombe, be honest now. Give us honest glasses, and no
nutshells, if you please."</p>

<p>Presently three more workmen entered together, and finally a
crowd of blouses passed in between the dusty oleanders.</p>

<p>"You have no business to ask such questions," said Gervaise to
Coupeau; "of course I loved him. But after the manner in which he
deserted me&mdash;"</p>

<p>They were speaking of Lantier. Gervaise had never seen him
again; she supposed him to be living with Virginie's sister, with
a friend who was about to start a manufactory for hats.</p>

<p>At first she thought of committing suicide, of drowning
herself, but she had grown more reasonable and had really begun
to trust that things were all for the best. With Lantier she felt
sure she never could have done justice to the children, so
extravagant were his habits.</p>

<p>He might come, of course, and see Claude and Etienne. She
would not show him the door; only so far as she herself was
concerned, he had best not lay his finger on her. And she uttered
these words in a tone of determination, like a woman whose plan
of life is clearly defined, while Coupeau, who was by no means
inclined to give her up lightly, teased and questioned her in
regard to Lantier with none too much delicacy, it is true, but
his teeth were so white and his face so merry that the woman
could not take offense. "Did you beat him?" he asked finally.
"Oh, you are none too amiable. You beat people sometimes, I have
heard."</p>

<p>She laughed gaily.</p>

<p>Yes, it was true she had whipped that great Virginie. That day
she could have strangled someone with a glad heart. And she
laughed again, because Coupeau told her that Virginie, in her
humiliation, had left the <i>Quartier</i>.</p>

<p>Gervaise's face, as she laughed, however, had a certain
childish sweetness. She extended her slender, dimpled hands,
declaring she would not hurt a fly. All she knew of blows was
that she had received a good many in her life. Then she began to
talk of Plassans and of her youth. She had never been indiscreet,
nor was she fond of men. When she had fallen in with Lantier she
was only fourteen, and she regarded him as her husband. Her only
fault, she declared, was that she was too amiable and allowed
people to impose on her and that she got fond of people too
easily; were she to love another man, she should wish and expect
to live quietly and comfortably with him always, without any
nonsense.</p>

<p>And when Coupeau slyly asked her if she called her dear
children nonsense she gave him a little slap and said that she,
of course, was much like other women. But women were not like
men, after all; they had their homes to take care of and keep
clean; she was like her mother, who had been a slave to her
brutal father for more than twenty years!</p>

<p>"My very lameness&mdash;" she continued.</p>

<p>"Your lameness?" interrupted Coupeau gallantly. "Why, it is
almost nothing. No one would ever notice it!"</p>

<p>She shook her head. She knew very well that it was very
evident, and at forty it would be far worse, but she said softly,
with a faint smile, "You have a strange taste, to fall in love
with a lame woman!"</p>

<p>He, with his elbows on the table, still coaxed and entreated,
but she continued to shake her head in the negative. She listened
with her eyes fixed on the street, seemingly fascinated by the
surging crowd.</p>

<p>The shops were being swept; the last frying pan of potatoes
was taken from the stove; the pork merchant washed the plates his
customers had used and put his place in order. Groups of
mechanics were hurrying out from all the workshops, laughing and
pushing each other like so many schoolboys, making a great
scuffling on the sidewalk with their hobnailed shoes; while some,
with their hands in their pockets, smoked in a meditative
fashion, looking up at the sun and winking prodigiously. The
sidewalks were crowded and the crowd constantly added to by men
who poured from the open door&mdash;men in blouses and frocks,
old jackets and coats, which showed all their defects in the
clear morning light.</p>

<p>The bells of the various manufactories were ringing loudly,
but the workmen did not hurry. They deliberately lighted their
pipes and then with rounded shoulders slouched along, dragging
their feet after them.</p>

<p>Gervaise mechanically watched a group of three, one man much
taller than the other two, who seemed to be hesitating as to what
they should do next. Finally they came directly to the
Assommoir.</p>

<p>"I know them," said Coupeau, "or rather I know the tall one.
It is Mes-Bottes, a comrade of mine."</p>

<p>The Assommoir was now crowded with boisterous men. Two glasses
rang with the energy with which they brought down their fists on
the counter. They stood in rows, with their hands crossed over
their stomachs or folded behind their backs, waiting their turn
to be served by Father Colombe.</p>

<p>"Hallo!" cried Mes-Bottes, giving Coupeau a rough slap on the
shoulders. "How fine you have got to be with your cigarettes and
your linen shirt bosom! Who is your friend that pays for all
this? I should like to make her acquaintance."</p>

<p>"Don't be so silly!" returned Coupeau angrily.</p>

<p>But the other gave a knowing wink.</p>

<p>"Ah, I understand. 'A word to the wise&mdash;'" And he turned
round with a fearful lurch to look at Gervaise, who shuddered and
recoiled. The tobacco smoke, the odor of humanity added to this
air heavy with alcohol, was oppressive, and she choked a little
and coughed.</p>

<p>"Ah, what an awful thing it is to drink!" she said in a
whisper to her friend, to whom she then went on to say how years
before she had drunk anisette with her mother at Plassans and how
it had made her so very sick that ever since that day she had
never been able to endure even the smell of liquors.</p>

<p>"You see," she added as she held up her glass, "I have eaten,
the fruit, but I left the brandy, for it would make me ill."</p>

<p>Coupeau also failed to understand how a man could swallow
glasses of brandy and water, one after the other. Brandied fruit,
now and again, was not bad. As to absinthe and similar
abominations, he never touched them&mdash;not he, indeed. His
comrades might laugh at him as much as they pleased; he always
remained on the other side of the door when they came in to
swallow perdition like that.</p>

<p>His father, who was a tinworker like himself, had fallen one
day from the roof of No. 25, in La Rue Coquenaud, and this
recollection had made him very prudent ever since. As for
himself, when he passed through that street and saw the place he
would sooner drink the water in the gutter than swallow a drop at
the wineshop. He concluded with the sentence:</p>

<p>"You see, in my trade a man needs a clear head and steady
legs."</p>

<p>Gervaise had taken up her basket; she had not risen from her
chair, however, but held it on her knees with a dreary look in
her eyes, as if the words of the young mechanic had awakened in
her mind strange thoughts of a possible future.</p>

<p>She answered in a low, hesitating tone, without any apparent
connection:</p>

<p>"Heaven knows I am not ambitious. I do not ask for much in
this world. My idea would be to live a quiet life and always have
enough to eat&mdash;a clean place to live in&mdash;with a
comfortable bed, a table and a chair or two. Yes, I would like to
bring my children up in that way and see them good and
industrious. I should not like to run the risk of being
beaten&mdash;no, that would not please me at all!"</p>

<p>She hesitated, as if to find something else to say, and then
resumed:</p>

<p>"Yes, and at the end I should wish to die in my bed in my own
home!"</p>

<p>She pushed back her chair and rose. Coupeau argued with her
vehemently and then gave an uneasy glance at the clock. They did
not, however, depart at once. She wished to look at the still and
stood for some minutes gazing with curiosity at the great copper
machine. The tinworker, who had followed her, explained to her
how the thing worked, pointing out with his finger the various
parts of the machine, and showed the enormous retort whence fell
the clear stream of alcohol. The still, with its intricate and
endless coils of wire and pipes, had a dreary aspect. Not a
breath escaped from it, and hardly a sound was heard. It was like
some night task performed in daylight by a melancholy, silent
workman.</p>

<p>In the meantime Mes-Bottes, accompanied by his two comrades,
had lounged to the oak railing and leaned there until there was a
corner of the counter free. He laughed a tipsy laugh as he stood
with his eyes fixed on the machine.</p>

<p>"By thunder!" he muttered. "That is a jolly little thing!"</p>

<p>He went on to say that it held enough to keep their throats
fresh for a week. As for himself, he would like to hold the end
of that pipe between his teeth, and he would like to feel that
liquor run down his throat in a steady stream until it reached
his heels.</p>

<p>The still did its work slowly but surely. There was not a
glimmer on its surface&mdash;no firelight reflected in its
clean-colored sides. The liquor dropped steadily and suggested a
persevering stream which would gradually invade the room, spread
over the streets and boulevard and finally deluge and inundate
Paris itself.</p>

<p>Gervaise shuddered and drew back. She tried to smile, but her
lips quivered as she murmured:</p>

<p>"It frightens me&mdash;that machine! It makes me feel cold to
see that constant drip."</p>

<p>Then returning to the idea which had struck her as the acme of
human happiness, she said:</p>

<p>"Say, do you not think that would be very nice? To work and
have plenty to eat, to have a little home all to oneself, to
bring up children and then die in one's bed?"</p>

<p>"And not be beaten," added Coupeau gaily. "But I will promise
never to beat you, Madame Gervaise, if you will agree to what I
ask. I will promise also never to drink, because I love you too
much! Come now, say yes."</p>

<p>He lowered his voice and spoke with his lips close to her
throat, while she, holding her basket in front of her, was making
a path through the crowd of men.</p>

<p>But she did not say no or shake her head as she had done. She
glanced up at him with a half-tender smile and seemed to rejoice
in the assurance he gave that he did not drink.</p>

<p>It was clear that she would have said yes if she had not sworn
never to have anything more to do with men.</p>

<p>Finally they reached the door and went out of the place,
leaving it crowded to overflowing. The fumes of alcohol and the
tipsy voices of the men carousing went out into the street with
them.</p>

<p>Mes-Bottes was heard accusing Father Colombe of cheating by
not filling his glasses more than half full, and he proposed to
his comrades to go in future to another place, where they could
do much better and get more for their money.</p>

<p>"Ah," said Gervaise, drawing a long breath when they stood on
the sidewalk, "here one can breathe again. Good-by, Monsieur
Coupeau, and many thanks for your politeness. I must hasten
now!"</p>

<p>She moved on, but he took her hand and held it fast.</p>

<p>"Go a little way with me. It will not be much farther for you.
I must stop at my sister's before I go back to the shop."</p>

<p>She yielded to his entreaties, and they walked slowly on
together. He told her about his family. His mother, a tailoress,
was the housekeeper. Twice she had been obliged to give up her
work on account of trouble with her eyes. She was sixty-two on
the third of the last month. He was the youngest child. One of
his sisters, Mme Lerat, a widow, thirty-six years old, was a
flower maker and lived at Batignolles, in La Rue Des Moines. The
other, who was thirty, had married a chainmaker&mdash;a man by
the name of Lorilleux. It was to their rooms that he was now
going. They lived in that great house on the left. He ate his
dinner every night with them; it was an economy for them all. But
he wanted to tell them now not to expect him that night, as he
was invited to dine with a friend.</p>

<p>Gervaise interrupted him suddenly:</p>

<p>"Did I hear your friend call you Cadet-Cassis?"</p>

<p>"Yes. That is a name they have given me, because when they
drag me into a wineshop it is cassis I always take. I had as lief
be called Cadet-Cassis as Mes-Bottes, any time."</p>

<p>"I do not think Cadet-Cassis so very bad," answered Gervaise,
and she asked him about his work. How long should he be employed
on the new hospital?</p>

<p>"Oh," he answered, "there was never any lack of work." He had
always more than he could do. He should remain in that shop at
least a year, for he had yards and yards of gutters to make.</p>

<p>"Do you know," he said, "when I am up there I can see the
Hôtel Boncœur. Yesterday you were at the window, and I
waved my hand, but you did not see me."</p>

<p>They by this time had turned into La Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. He
stopped and looked up.</p>

<p>"There is the house," he said, "and I was born only a few
doors farther off. It is an enormous place."</p>

<p>Gervaise looked up and down the façade. It was indeed
enormous. The house was of five stories, with fifteen windows on
each floor. The blinds were black and with many of the slats
broken, which gave an indescribable air of ruin and desolation to
the place. Four shops occupied the <i>rez-de-chaussée</i>.
On the right of the door was a large room, occupied as a
cookshop. On the left was a charcoal vender, a thread-and-needle
shop and an establishment for the manufacture of umbrellas.</p>

<p>The house appeared all the higher for the reason that on
either side were two low buildings, squeezed close to it, and
stood square, like a block of granite roughly hewn, against the
blue sky. Totally without ornament, the house grimly suggested a
prison.</p>

<p>Gervaise looked at the entrance, an immense doorway which rose
to the height of the second story and made a deep passage, at the
end of which was a large courtyard. In the center of this
doorway, which was paved like the street, ran a gutter full of
pale rose-colored water.</p>

<p>"Come up," said Coupeau; "they won't eat you."</p>

<p>Gervaise preferred to wait for him in the street, but she
consented to go as far as the room of the concierge, which was
within the porch, on the left.</p>

<p>When she had reached this place she again looked up.</p>

<p>Within there were six floors, instead of five, and four
regular façades surrounded the vast square of the
courtyard. The walls were gray, covered with patches of leprous
yellow, stained by the dripping from the slate-covered roof. The
wall had not even a molding to break its dull
uniformity&mdash;only the gutters ran across it. The windows had
neither shutters nor blinds but showed the panes of glass which
were greenish and full of bubbles. Some were open, and from them
hung checked mattresses and sheets to air. Lines were stretched
in front of others, on which the family wash was hung to
dry&mdash;men's shirts, women's chemises and children's breeches!
There was a look as if the dwellers under that roof found their
quarters too small and were oozing out at every crack and
aperture.</p>

<p>For the convenience of each façade there was a narrow,
high doorway, from which a damp passage led to the rear, where
were four staircases with iron railings. These each had one of
the first four letters of the alphabet painted at the side.</p>

<p>The <i>Rez de Chaussée</i> was divided into enormous
workshops and lit by windows black with dust. The forge of a
locksmith blazed in one; from another came the sound of a
carpenter's plane, while near the doorway a pink stream from a
dyeing establishment poured into the gutter. Pools of stagnant
water stood in the courtyard, all littered with shavings and
fragments of charcoal. A few pale tufts of grass struggled up
between the flat stones, and the whole courtyard was lit but
dimly.</p>

<p>In the shade near the water faucet three small hens were
pecking with the vain hope of finding a worm, and Gervaise looked
about her, amazed at the enormous place which seemed like a
little world and as interested in the house as if it were a
living creature.</p>

<p>"Are you looking for anyone?" asked the concierge, coming to
her door considerably puzzled.</p>

<p>But the young woman explained that she was waiting for a
friend and then turned back toward the street. As Coupeau still
delayed, she returned to the courtyard, finding in it a strange
fascination.</p>

<p>The house did not strike her as especially ugly. At some of
the windows were plants&mdash;a wallflower blooming in a
pot&mdash;a caged canary, who uttered an occasional warble, and
several shaving mirrors caught the light and shone like
stars.</p>

<p>A cabinetmaker sang, accompanied by the regular whistling
sounds of his plane, while from the locksmith's quarters came a
clatter of hammers struck in cadence.</p>

<p>At almost all the open windows the laughing, dirty faces of
merry children were seen, and women sat with their calm faces in
profile, bending over their work. It was the quiet
time&mdash;after the morning labors were over and the men were
gone to their work and the house was comparatively quiet,
disturbed only by the sounds of the various trades. The same
refrain repeated hour after hour has a soothing effect, Gervaise
thought.</p>

<p>To be sure, the courtyard was a little damp. Were she to live
there, she should certainly prefer a room on the sunny side.</p>

<p>She went in several steps and breathed that heavy odor of the
homes of the poor&mdash;an odor of old dust, of rancid dirt and
grease&mdash;but as the acridity of the smells from the dyehouse
predominated, she decided it to be far better than the
Hôtel Boncœur.</p>

<p>She selected a window&mdash;a window in the corner on the
left, where there was a small box planted with scarlet beans,
whose slender tendrils were beginning to wind round a little
arbor of strings.</p>

<p>"I have made you wait too long, I am afraid," said Coupeau,
whom she suddenly heard at her side. "They make a great fuss when
I do not dine there, and she did not like it today, especially as
my sister had bought veal. You are looking at this house," he
continued. "Think of it&mdash;it is always lit from top to
bottom. There are a hundred lodgers in it. If I had any furniture
I would have had a room in it long ago. It would be very nice
here, wouldn't it?"</p>

<p>"Yes," murmured Gervaise, "very nice indeed. At Plassans there
were not so many people in one whole street. Look up at that
window on the fifth floor&mdash;the window, I mean, where those
beans are growing. See how pretty that is!"</p>

<p>He, with his usual recklessness, declared he would hire that
room for her, and they would live there together.</p>

<p>She turned away with a laugh and begged him not to talk any
more nonsense. The house might stand or fall&mdash;they would
never have a room in it together.</p>

<p>But Coupeau, all the same, was not reproved when he held her
hand longer than was necessary in bidding her farewell when they
reached Mme Fauconnier's laundry.</p>

<p>For another month the kindly intercourse between Gervaise and
Coupeau continued on much the same footing. He thought her
wonderfully courageous, declared she was killing herself with
hard work all day and sitting up half the night to sew for the
children. She was not like the women he had known; she took life
too seriously, by far!</p>

<p>She laughed and defended herself modestly. Unfortunately, she
said, she had not always been discreet. She alluded to her first
confinement when she was not more than fourteen and to the
bottles of anisette she had emptied with her mother, but she had
learned much from experience, she said. He was mistaken, however,
in thinking she was persevering and strong. She was, on the
contrary, very weak and too easily influenced, as she had
discovered to her cost. Her dream had always been to live in a
respectable way among respectable people, because bad company
knocks the life out of a woman. She trembled when she thought of
the future and said she was like a sou thrown up in the air,
falling, heads up or down, according to chance, on the muddy
pavement. All she had seen, the bad example spread before her
childish eyes, had given her valuable lessons. But Coupeau
laughed at these gloomy notions and brought back her courage by
attempting to put his arm around her waist. She slapped his
hands, and he cried out that "for a weak woman, she managed to
hurt a fellow considerably!"</p>

<p>As for himself, he was always as merry as a grig, and no fool,
either. He parted his hair carefully on one side, wore pretty
cravats and patent-leather shoes on Sunday and was as saucy as
only a fine Parisian workman can be.</p>

<p>They were of mutual use to each other at the Hôtel
Boncœur. Coupeau went for her milk, did many little errands for
her and carried home her linen to her customers and often took
the children out to walk. Gervaise, to return these courtesies,
went up to the tiny room where he slept and in his absence looked
over his clothes, sewed on buttons and mended his garments. They
grew to be very good and cordial friends. He was to her a
constant source of amusement. She listened to the songs he sang
and to their slang and nonsense, which as yet had for her much of
the charm of novelty. But he began to grow uneasy, and his smiles
were less frequent. He asked her whenever they met the same
question, "When shall it be?"</p>

<p>She answered invariably with a jest but passed her days in a
fire of indelicate allusions, however, which did not bring a
flush to her cheek. So long as he was not rough and brutal, she
objected to nothing, but one day she was very angry when he, in
trying to steal a kiss, tore out a lock of her hair.</p>

<p>About, the last of June Coupeau became absolutely morose, and
Gervaise was so much disturbed by certain glances he gave her
that she fairly barricaded her door at night. Finally one Tuesday
evening, when he had sulked from the previous Sunday, he came to
her door at eleven in the evening. At first she refused to open
it, but his voice was so gentle, so sad even, that she pulled
away the barrier she had pushed against the door for her better
protection. When he came in she was startled and thought him ill;
he was so deadly pale and his eyes were so bright. No, he was not
ill, he said, but things could not go on like this; he could not
sleep.</p>

<p>"Listen, Madame Gervaise," he exclaimed with tears in his eyes
and a strange choking sensation in his throat. "We must be
married at once. That is all there is to be said about it."</p>

<p>Gervaise was astonished and very grave.</p>

<p>"Oh, Monsieur Coupeau, I never dreamed of this, as you know
very well, and you must not take such a step lightly."</p>

<p>But he continued to insist; he was certainly fully determined.
He had come down to her then, without waiting until morning,
merely because he needed a good sleep. As soon as she said yes he
would leave her. But he would not go until he heard that
word.</p>

<p>"I cannot say yes in such a hurry," remonstrated Gervaise. "I
do not choose to run the risk of your telling me at some future
day that I led you into this. You are making a great mistake, I
assure you. Suppose you should not see me for a week&mdash;you
would forget me entirely. Men sometimes marry for a fancy and in
twenty-four hours would gladly take it all back. Sit down here
and let us talk a little."</p>

<p>They sat in that dingy room lit only by one candle, which they
forgot to snuff, and discussed the expediency of their marriage
until after midnight, speaking very low, lest they should disturb
the children, who were asleep with weir heads on the same
pillow.</p>

<p>And Gervaise pointed them out to Coupeau. That was an odd sort
of dowry to carry a man, surely! How could she venture to go to
him with such encumbrances? Then, too, she was troubled about
another thing. People would laugh at him. Her story was known;
her lover had been seen, and there would be no end of talk if she
should marry now.</p>

<p>To all these good and excellent reasons Coupeau answered with
a shrug of his shoulders. What did he care for talk and gossip?
He never meddled with the affairs of others; why should they
meddle with his?</p>

<p>Yes, she had children, to be sure, and he would look out for
them with her. He had never seen a woman in his life who was so
good and so courageous and patient. Besides, that had nothing to
do with it! Had she been ugly and lazy, with a dozen dirty
children, he would have wanted her and only her.</p>

<p>"Yes," he continued, tapping her on the knee, "you are the
woman I want, and none other. You have nothing to say against
that, I suppose?"</p>

<p>Gervaise melted by degrees. Her resolution forsook her, and a
weakness of her heart and her senses overwhelmed her in the face
of this brutal passion. She ventured only a timid objection or
two. Her hands lay loosely folded on her knees, while her face
was very gentle and sweet.</p>

<p>Through the open window came the soft air of a fair June
night; the candle flickered in the wind; from the street came the
sobs of a child, the child of a drunken man who was lying just in
front of the door in the street. From a long distance the breeze
brought the notes of a violin playing at a restaurant for some
late marriage festival&mdash;a delicate strain it was, too, clear
and sweet as musical glasses.</p>

<p>Coupeau, seeing that the young woman had exhausted all her
arguments, snatched her hands and drew her toward him. She was in
one of those moods which she so much distrusted, when she could
refuse no one anything. But the young man did not understand
this, and he contented himself with simply holding her hands
closely in his.</p>

<p>"You say yes, do you not?" he asked.</p>

<p>"How you tease," she replied. "You wish it&mdash;well then,
yes. Heaven grant that the day will not come when you will be
sorry for it."</p>

<p>He started up, lifting her from her feet, and kissed her
loudly. He glanced at the children.</p>

<p>"Hush!" he said. "We must not wake the boys. Good night."</p>

<p>And he went out of the room. Gervaise, trembling from head to
foot, sat for a full hour on the side of her bed without
undressing. She was profoundly touched and thought Coupeau very
honest and very kind. The tipsy man in the street uttered a groan
like that of a wild beast, and the notes of the violin had
ceased.</p>

<p>The next evening Coupeau urged Gervaise to go with him to call
on his sister. But the young woman shrank with ardent fear from
this visit to the Lorilleuxs'. She saw perfectly well that her
lover stood in dread of these people.</p>

<p>He was in no way dependent on this sister, who was not the
eldest either. Mother Coupeau would gladly give her consent, for
she had never been known to contradict her son. In the family,
however, the Lorilleuxs were supposed to earn ten francs per day,
and this gave them great weight. Coupeau would never venture to
marry unless they agreed to accept his wife.</p>

<p>"I have told them about you," he said. "Gervaise&mdash;good
heavens, what a baby you are! Come there tonight with me; you
will find my sister a little stiff, and Lorilleux is none too
amiable. The truth is they are much vexed, because, you see, if I
marry I shall no longer dine with them&mdash;and that is their
great economy. But that makes no odds; they won't put you out of
doors. Do what I ask, for it is absolutely necessary."</p>

<p>These words frightened Gervaise nearly out of her wits. One
Saturday evening, however, she consented. Coupeau came for her at
half-past eight. She was all ready, wearing a black dress, a
shawl with printed palm leaves in yellow and a white cap with
fluted ruffles. She had saved seven francs for the shawl and two
francs fifty centimes for the cap; the dress was an old one,
cleaned and made over.</p>

<p>"They expect you," said Coupeau as they walked along the
street, "and they have become accustomed to the idea of seeing me
married. They are really quite amiable tonight. Then, too, if you
have never seen a gold chain made you will be much amused in
watching it. They have an order for Monday."</p>

<p>"And have they gold in these rooms?" asked Gervaise.</p>

<p>"I should say so! It is on the walls, on the
floors&mdash;everywhere!"</p>

<p>By this time they had reached the door and had entered the
courtyard. The Lorilleuxs lived on the sixth
floor&mdash;staircase B. Coupeau told her with a laugh to keep
tight hold of the iron railing and not let it go.</p>

<p>She looked up, half shutting her eyes, and gasped as she saw
the height to which the staircase wound. The last gas burner,
higher up, looked like a star trembling in a black sky, while two
others on alternate floors cast long, slanting rays down the
interminable stairs.</p>

<p>"Aha!" cried the young man as they stopped a moment on the
second landing. "I smell onion soup; somebody has evidently been
eating onion soup about here, and it smells good too."</p>

<p>It is true. Staircase B, dirty and greasy, both steps and
railing with plastering knocked off and showing the laths
beneath, was permeated with the smell of cooking. From each
landing ran narrow corridors, and on either side were half-open
doors painted yellow and black, with finger marks about the lock
and handles, and through the open window came the damp,
disgusting smell of sinks and sewers mingling with the odor of
onions.</p>

<p>Up to the sixth floor came the noises from the
rez-de-chaussée&mdash;the rattling of dishes being washed,
the scraping of saucepans, and all that sort of thing. On one
floor Gervaise saw through an open door on which were the words
DESIGNER AND DRAUGHTSMAN in large letters two men seated at a
table covered with a varnished cloth; they were disputing
violently amid thick clouds of smoke from their pipes. The second
and third floors were the quietest. Here through the open doors
came the sound of a cradle rocking, the wail of a baby, a woman's
voice, the rattle of a spoon against a cup. On one door she read
a placard, MME GAUDRON, CARDER; on the next, M. MADINIER,
MANUFACTURER OF BOXES.</p>

<p>On the fourth there was a great quarrel going on&mdash;blows
and oaths&mdash;which did not prevent the neighbors opposite from
playing cards with their door wide open for the benefit of the
air. When Gervaise reached the fifth floor she was out of breath.
Such innumerable stairs were a novelty to her. These winding
railings made her dizzy. One family had taken possession of the
landing; the father was washing plates in a small earthen pan
near the sink, while the mother was scrubbing the baby before
putting it to sleep. Coupeau laughingly bade Gervaise keep up her
courage, and at last they reached the top, and she looked around
to see whence came the clear, shrill voice which she had heard
above all other sounds ever since her foot touched the first
stair. It was a little old woman who sang as she worked, and her
work was dressing dolls at three cents apiece. Gervaise clung to
the railing, all out of breath, and looked down into the depths
below&mdash;the gas burner now looked like a star at the bottom
of a deep well. The smells, the turbulent life of this great
house, seemed to rush over her in one tremendous gust. She gasped
and turned pale.</p>

<p>"We have not got there yet," said Coupeau; "we have much
farther to go." And he turned to the left and then to the right
again. The corridor stretched out before them, faintly lit by an
occasional gas burner; a succession of doors, like those of a
prison or a convent, continued to appear, nearly all wide open,
showing the sordid interiors. Finally they reached a corridor
that was entirely dark.</p>

<p>"Here we are," said the tinworker. "Isn't it a journey? Look
out for three steps. Hold onto the wall."</p>

<p>And Gervaise moved cautiously for ten paces or more. She
counted the three steps, and then Coupeau pushed open a door
without knocking. A bright light streamed forth. They went
in.</p>

<p>It was a long, narrow apartment, almost like a prolongation of
the corridor; a woolen curtain, faded and spotted, drawn on one
side, divided the room in two.</p>

<p>One compartment, the first, contained a bed pushed under the
corner of the mansard roof; a stove, still warm from the cooking
of the dinner; two chairs, a table and a wardrobe. To place this
last piece of furniture where it stood, between the bed and the
door, had necessitated sawing away a portion of the ceiling.</p>

<p>The second compartment was the workshop. At the back, a tiny
forge with bellows; on the right, a vice screwed against the wall
under an étagère, where were iron tools piled up;
on the left, in front of the window, was a small table covered
with pincers, magnifying glasses, tiny scales and
shears&mdash;all dirty and greasy.</p>

<p>"We have come!" cried Coupeau, going as far as the woolen
curtain.</p>

<p>But he was not answered immediately.</p>

<p>Gervaise, much agitated by the idea that she was entering a
place filled with gold, stood behind her friend and did not know
whether to speak or retreat.</p>

<p>The bright light which came from a lamp and also from a
brazier of charcoal in the forge added to her trouble. She saw
Mme Lorilleux, a small, dark woman, agile and strong, drawing
with all the vigor of her arms&mdash;assisted by a pair of
pincers&mdash;a thread of black metal, which she passed through
the holes of a drawplate held by the vice. Before the desk or
table in front of the window sat Lorilleux, as short as his wife,
but with broader shoulders. He was managing a tiny pair of
pincers and doing some work so delicate that it was almost
imperceptible. It was he who first looked up and lifted his head
with its scanty yellow hair. His face was the color of old wax,
was long and had an expression of physical suffering.</p>

<p>"Ah, it is you, is it? Well! Well! But we are in a hurry, you
understand. We have an order to fill. Don't come into the
workroom. Remain in the chamber." And he returned to his work;
his face was reflected in a ball filled with water, through which
the lamp sent on his work a circle of the brightest possible
light.</p>

<p>"Find chairs for yourselves," cried Mme Lorilleux. "This is
the lady, I suppose. Very well! Very well!"</p>

<p>She rolled up her wire and carried it to the forge, and then
she fanned the coals a little to quicken the heat.</p>

<p>Coupeau found two chairs and made Gervaise seat herself near
the curtain. The room was so narrow that he could not sit beside
her, so he placed his chair a little behind and leaned over her
to give her the information he deemed desirable.</p>

<p>Gervaise, astonished by the strange reception given her by
these people and uncomfortable under their sidelong glances, had
a buzzing in her ears which prevented her from hearing what was
said.</p>

<p>She thought the woman very old looking for her thirty years
and also extremely untidy, with her hair tumbling over her
shoulders and her dirty camisole.</p>

<p>The husband, not more than a year older, seemed to Gervaise
really an old man with thin, compressed lips and bowed figure. He
was in his shirt sleeves, and his naked feet were thrust into
slippers down at the heel.</p>

<p>She was infinitely astonished at the smallness of the atelier,
at the blackened walls and at the terrible heat.</p>

<p>Tiny drops bedewed the waxed forehead of Lorilleux himself,
while Mme Lorilleux threw off her sack and stood in bare arms and
chemise half slipped off.</p>

<p>"And the gold?" asked Gervaise softly.</p>

<p>Her eager eyes searched the corners, hoping to discover amid
all the dirt something of the splendor of which she had
dreamed.</p>

<p>But Coupeau laughed.</p>

<p>"Gold?" he said. "Look! Here it is&mdash;and here&mdash;and
here again, at your feet."</p>

<p>He pointed in succession to the fine thread with which his
sister was busy and at another package of wire hung against the
wall near the vice; then falling down on his hands and knees, he
gathered up from the floor, on the tip of his moistened finger,
several tiny specks which looked like needle points.</p>

<p>Gervaise cried out, "That surely is not gold! That black metal
which looks precisely like iron!"</p>

<p>Her lover laughed and explained to her the details of the
manufacture in which his brother-in-law was engaged. The wire was
furnished them in coils, just as it hung against the wall, and
then they were obliged to heat and reheat it half a dozen times
during their manipulations, lest it should break. Considerable
strength and a vast deal of skill were needed, and his sister had
both. He had seen her draw out the gold until it was like a hair.
She would never let her husband do it because he always had a
cough.</p>

<p>All this time Lorilleux was watching Gervaise stealthily, and
after a violent fit of coughing he said with an air as if he were
speaking to himself:</p>

<p>"I make columns."</p>

<p>"Yes," said Coupeau in an explanatory voice, "there are four
different kinds of chains, and his style is called a column."</p>

<p>Lorilleux uttered a little grunt of satisfaction, all the time
at work, with the tiny pincers held between very dirty nails.</p>

<p>"Look here, Cadet-Cassis," he said. "This very morning I made
a little calculation. I began my work when I was only twelve
years old. How many yards do you think I have made up to this
day?"</p>

<p>He lifted his pale face.</p>

<p>"Eight thousand! Do you understand? Eight thousand! Enough to
twist around the necks of all the women in this
<i>Quartier</i>."</p>

<p>Gervaise returned to her chair, entirely disenchanted. She
thought it was all very ugly and uninteresting. She smiled in
order to gratify the Lorilleuxs, but she was annoyed and troubled
at the profound silence they preserved in regard to her marriage,
on account of which she had called there that evening. These
people treated her as if she were simply a spectator whose
curiosity had induced Coupeau to bring her to see their work.</p>

<p>They began to talk; it was about the lodgers in the house. Mme
Lorilleux asked her brother if he had not heard those Benard
people quarreling as he came upstairs. She said the husband
always came home tipsy. Then she spoke of the designer, who was
overwhelmed with debts, always smoking and always quarreling. The
landlord was going to turn out the Coquets, who owed three
quarters now and who would put their furnace out on the landing,
which was very dangerous. Mlle Remanjon, as she was going
downstairs with a bundle of dolls, was just in time to rescue one
of the children from being burned alive.</p>

<p>Gervaise was beginning to find the place unendurable. The heat
was suffocating; the door could not be opened, because the
slightest draft gave Lorilleux a cold. As they ignored the
marriage question utterly, she pulled her lover's sleeve to
signify her wish to depart. He understood and was himself annoyed
at this affectation of silence.</p>

<p>"We are going," he said coldly, "We do not care to interrupt
your work any longer."</p>

<p>He lingered a moment, hoping for a word or an allusion.
Suddenly he decided to begin the subject himself.</p>

<p>"We rely on you, Lorilleux. You will be my wife's witness," he
said.</p>

<p>The man lifted his head in affected surprise, while his wife
stood still in the center of the workshop.</p>

<p>"Are you in earnest?" he murmured, and then continued as if
soliloquizing, "It is hard to know when this confounded
Cadet-Cassis is in earnest."</p>

<p>"We have no advice to give," interrupted his wife. "It is a
foolish notion, this marrying, and it never succeeds.
Never&mdash;no&mdash;never."</p>

<p>She drawled out these last words, examining Gervaise from head
to foot as she spoke.</p>

<p>"My brother is free to do as he pleases, of course," she
continued. "Of course his family would have liked&mdash;But then
people always plan, and things turn out so different. Of course
it is none of my business. Had he brought me the lowest of the
low, I should have said, 'Marry her and let us live in peace!' He
was very comfortable with us, nevertheless. He has considerable
flesh on his bones and does not look as if he had been starved.
His soup was always ready to the minute. Tell me, Lorilleux,
don't you think that my brother's friend looks like
Thérèse&mdash;you know whom I mean&mdash;that woman
opposite, who died of consumption?"</p>

<p>"She certainly does," answered the chainmaker
contemplatively.</p>

<p>"And you have two children, madame? I said to my brother I
could not understand how he could marry a woman with two
children. You must not be angry if I think of his interests; it
is only natural. You do not look very strong. Say, Lorilleux,
don't you think that Madame looks delicate?"</p>

<p>This courteous pair made no allusion to her lameness, but
Gervaise felt it to be in their minds. She sat stiff and still
before them, her thin shawl with its yellow palm leaves wrapped
closely about her, and answered in monosyllables, as if before
her judges. Coupeau, realizing her sufferings, cried out:</p>

<p>"This is all nonsense you are talking! What I want to know is
if the day will suit you, July twenty-ninth."</p>

<p>"One day is the same as another to us," answered his sister
severely. "Lorilleux can do as he pleases in regard to being your
witness. I only ask for peace."</p>

<p>Gervaise, in her embarrassment, had been pushing about with
her feet some of the rubbish on the floor; then fearing she had
done some harm, she stooped to ascertain. Lorilleux hastily
approached her with a lamp and looked at her fingers with evident
suspicion.</p>

<p>"Take care," he said. "Those small bits of gold stick to the
shoes sometimes and are carried off without your knowing it."</p>

<p>This was a matter of some importance, of course, for his
employers weighed what they entrusted to him. He showed the
hare's-foot with which he brushed the particles of gold from the
table and the skin spread on his knees to receive them. Twice
each week the shop was carefully brushed; all the rubbish was
kept and burned, and the ashes were examined, where were found
each month twenty-five or thirty francs of gold.</p>

<p>Mme Lorilleux did not take her eyes from the shoes of her
guest.</p>

<p>"If Mademoiselle would be so kind," she murmured with an
amiable smile, "and would just look at her soles herself. There
is no cause for offense, I am sure!"</p>

<p>Gervaise, indignant and scarlet, reseated herself and held up
her shoes for examination. Coupeau opened the door with a gay
good night, and she followed him into the corridor after a word
or two of polite farewell.</p>

<p>The Lorilleuxs turned to their work at the end of their room
where the tiny forge still glittered. The woman with her chemise
slipped off her shoulder which was red with the reflection from
the brazier, was drawing out another wire, the muscles in her
throat swelling with her exertions.</p>

<p>The husband, stooping under the green light of the ball of
water, was again busy with his pincers, not stopping even to wipe
the sweat from his brow.</p>

<p>When Gervaise emerged from the narrow corridors on the sixth
landing she said with tears in her eyes:</p>

<p>"This certainly does not promise very well!"</p>

<p>Coupeau shook his head angrily. Lorilleux should pay for this
evening! Was there ever such a miser? To care if one carried off
three grains of gold in the dust on one's shoes. All the stories
his sister told were pure fictions and malice. His sister never
meant him to marry; his eating with them saved her at least four
sous daily. But he did not care whether they appeared on the
twenty-ninth of July or not; he could get along without them
perfectly well.</p>

<p>But Gervaise, as she descended the staircase, felt her heart
swell with pain and fear. She did not like the strange shadows on
the dimly lit stairs. From behind the doors, now closed, came the
heavy breathing of sleepers who had gone to their beds on rising
from the table. A faint laugh was heard from one room, while a
slender thread of light filtered through the keyhole of the old
lady who was still busy with her dolls, cutting out the gauze
dresses with squeaking scissors. A child was crying on the next
floor, and the smell from the sinks was worse than ever and
seemed something tangible amid this silent darkness. Then in the
courtyard, while Coupeau pulled the cord, Gervaise turned and
examined the house once more. It seemed enormous as it stood
black against the moonless sky. The gray facades rose tall and
spectral; the windows were all shut. No clothes fluttered in the
breeze; there was literally not the smallest look of life, except
in the few windows that were still lighted. From the damp corner
of the courtyard came the drip-drip of the fountain. Suddenly it
seemed to Gervaise as if the house were striding toward her and
would crush her to the earth. A moment later she smiled at her
foolish fancy.</p>

<p>"Take care!" cried Coupeau.</p>

<p>And as she passed out of the courtyard she was compelled to
jump over a little sea which had run from the dyer's. This time
the water was blue, as blue as the summer sky, and the reflection
of the lamps carried by the concierge was like the stars
themselves.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2>CHAPTER III<br/>
A MARRIAGE OF THE PEOPLE</h2>

<p>Gervaise did not care for any great wedding. Why should they
spend their money so foolishly? Then, too, she felt a little
ashamed and did not care to parade their marriage before the
whole <i>Quartier</i>. But Coupeau objected. It would never do
not to have some festivities&mdash;a little drive and a supper,
perhaps, at a restaurant; he would ask for nothing more. He vowed
that no one should drink too much and finally obtained the young
woman's consent and organized a picnic at five francs per head at
the Moulin d'Argent, Boulevard de la Chapelle. He was a small
wine merchant who had a garden back of his restaurant. He made
out a list. Among others appeared the names of two of his
comrades, Bibi-la-Grillade and Mes-Bottes. It was true that
Mes-Bottes crooked his elbow, but he was so deliciously funny
that he was always invited to picnics. Gervaise said she, in her
turn, would bring her employer, Mme Fauconnier&mdash;all told,
there would be fifteen at the table. That was quite enough.</p>

<p>Now as Coupeau was literally penniless, he borrowed fifty
francs from his employer. He first bought his wedding ring; it
cost twelve francs out of the shop, but his brother-in-law
purchased it for him for nine at the factory. He then ordered an
overcoat, pantaloons and vest from a tailor to whom he paid
twenty-five francs on account. His patent-leather shoes and his
bolivar could last awhile longer. Then he put aside his ten
francs for the picnic, which was what he and Gervaise must pay,
and they had precisely six francs remaining, the price of a Mass
at the altar of the poor. He had no liking for those black
frocks, and it broke his heart to give these beloved francs to
them. But a marriage without a Mass, he had heard, was really no
marriage at all.</p>

<p>He went to the church to see if he could not drive a better
bargain, and for an hour he fought with a stout little priest in
a dirty soutane who, finally declaring that God could never bless
such a union, agreed that the Mass should cost only five francs.
Thus Coupeau had twenty sous in hand with which to begin the
world!</p>

<p>Gervaise, in her turn, had made her preparations, had worked
late into the night and laid aside thirty francs. She had set her
heart on a silk mantelet marked thirteen francs, which she had
seen in a shopwindow. She paid for it and bought for ten francs
from the husband of a laundress who had died in Mme Fauconnier's
house a delaine dress of a deep blue, which she made over
entirely. With the seven francs that remained she bought a rose
for her cap, a pair of white cotton gloves and shoes for Claude.
Fortunately both the boys had nice blouses. She worked for four
days mending and making; there was not a hole or a rip in
anything. At last the evening before the important day arrived;
Gervaise and Coupeau sat together and talked, happy that matters
were so nearly concluded. Their arrangements were all made. They
were to go to the mayor's office&mdash;the two sisters of Coupeau
declared they would remain at home, their presence not being
necessary there. Then Mother Coupeau began to weep, saying she
wished to go early and hide in a corner, and they promised to
take her.</p>

<p>The hour fixed for the party to assemble at the Moulin
d'Argent was one o'clock sharp. From then they were to seek an
appetite on the Plaine-St-Denis and return by rail. Saturday
morning, as he dressed, Coupeau thought with some anxiety of his
scanty funds; he supposed he ought to offer a glass of wine and a
slice of ham to his witnesses while waiting for dinner;
unexpected expenses might arise; no, it was clear that twenty
sous was not enough. He consequently, after taking Claude and
Etienne to Mlle Boche, who promised to appear with them at
dinner, ran to his brother-in-law and borrowed ten francs; he did
it with reluctance, and the words stuck in his throat, for he
half expected a refusal. Lorilleux grumbled and growled but
finally lent the money. But Coupeau heard his sister mutter under
her breath, "That is a good beginning."</p>

<p>The civil marriage was fixed for half-past ten. The day was
clear and the sun intensely hot. In order not to excite
observation the bridal pair, the mother and the four witnesses,
separated&mdash;Gervaise walked in front, having the arm of
Lorilleux, while M. Madinier gave his to Mamma Coupeau; on the
opposite sidewalk were Coupeau, Boche and Bibi-la-Grillade. These
three wore black frock coats and walked with their arms dangling
from their rounded shoulders. Boche wore yellow pantaloons.
Bibi-la-Grillade's coat was buttoned to the chin, as he had no
vest, and a wisp of a cravat was tied around his neck.</p>

<p>M. Madinier was the only one who wore a dress coat, a superb
coat with square tails, and people stared as he passed with the
stout Mamma Coupeau in a green shawl and black bonnet with black
ribbons. Gervaise was very sweet and gentle, wearing her blue
dress and her trim little silk mantle. She listened graciously to
Lorilleux, who, in spite of the warmth of the day, was nearly
lost in the ample folds of a loose overcoat. Occasionally she
would turn her head and glance across the street with a little
smile at Coupeau, who was none too comfortable in his new
clothes. They reached the mayor's office a half-hour too early,
and their turn was not reached until nearly eleven. They sat in
the corner of the office, stiff and uneasy, pushing back their
chairs a little out of politeness each time one of the clerks
passed them, and when the magistrate appeared they all rose
respectfully. They were bidden to sit down again, which they did,
and were the spectators of three marriages&mdash;the brides in
white and the bridesmaids in pink and blue, quite fine and
stylish.</p>

<p>When their own turn came Bibi-la-Grillade had disappeared, and
Boche hunted him up in the square, where he had gone to smoke a
pipe. All the forms were so quickly completed that the party
looked at each other in dismay, feeling as if they had been
defrauded of half the ceremony. Gervaise listened with tears in
her eyes, and the old lady wept audibly.</p>

<p>Then they turned to the register and wrote their names in big,
crooked letters&mdash;all but the newly made husband, who, not
being able to write, contented himself with making a cross.</p>

<p>Then the clerk handed the certificate to Coupeau. He,
admonished by a touch of his wife's elbow, presented him with
five sous.</p>

<p>It was quite a long walk from the mayor's office to the
church. The men stopped midway to take a glass of beer, and
Gervaise and Mamma Coupeau drank some cassis with water. There
was not a particle of shade, for the sun was directly above their
heads. The beadle awaited them in the empty church; he hurried
them toward a small chapel, asking them indignantly if they were
not ashamed to mock at religion by coming so late. A priest came
toward them with an ashen face, faint with hunger, preceded by a
boy in a dirty surplice. He hurried through the service, gabbling
the Latin phrases with sidelong glances at the bridal party. The
bride and bridegroom knelt before the altar in considerable
embarrassment, not knowing when it was necessary to kneel and
when to stand and not always understanding the gestures made by
the clerk.</p>

<p>The witnesses thought it more convenient to stand all the
time, while Mamma Coupeau, overcome by her tears again, shed them
on a prayer book which she had borrowed from a neighbor.</p>

<p>It was high noon. The last Mass was said, and the church was
noisy with the movements of the sacristans, who were putting the
chairs in their places. The center altar was being prepared for
some fete, for the hammers were heard as the decorations were
being nailed up. And in the choking dust raised by the broom of
the man who was sweeping the corner of the small altar the priest
laid his cold and withered hand on the heads of Gervaise and
Coupeau with a sulky air, as if he were uniting them as a mere
matter of business or to occupy the time between the two
Masses.</p>

<p>When the signatures were again affixed to the register in the
vestry and the party stood outside in the sunshine, they had a
sensation as if they had been driven at full speed and were glad
to rest.</p>

<p>"I feel as if I had been at the dentist's. We had no time to
cry out before it was all over!"</p>

<p>"Yes," muttered Lorilleux, "they take less than five minutes
to do what can't be undone in all one's life! Poor
Cadet-Cassis!"</p>

<p>Gervaise kissed her new mother with tears in her eyes but with
smiling lips. She answered the old woman gently:</p>

<p>"Do not be afraid. I will do my best to make him happy. If
things turn out ill it shall not be my fault."</p>

<p>The party went at once to the Moulin d'Argent. Coupeau now
walked with his wife some little distance in advance of the
others. They whispered and laughed together and seemed to see
neither the people nor the houses nor anything that was going on
about them.</p>

<p>At the restaurant Coupeau ordered at once some bread and ham;
then seeing that Boche and Bibi-la-Grillade were really hungry,
he ordered more wine and more meat. His mother could eat nothing,
and Gervaise, who was dying of thirst, drank glass after glass of
water barely reddened with wine.</p>

<p>"This is my affair," said Coupeau, going to the counter where
he paid four francs, five sous.</p>

<p>The guests began to arrive. Mme Fauconnier, stout and
handsome, was the first. She wore a percale gown, ecru ground
with bright figures, a rose-colored cravat and a bonnet laden
with flowers. Then came Mlle Remanjon in her scanty black dress,
which seemed so entirely a part of herself that it was doubtful
if she laid it aside at night. The Gaudron household followed.
The husband, enormously stout, looked as if his vest would burst
at the least movement, and his wife, who was nearly as huge as
himself, was dressed in a delicate shade of violet which added to
her apparent size.</p>

<p>"Ah," cried Mme Lerat as she entered, "we are going to have a
tremendous shower!" And she bade them all look out the window to
see how black the clouds were.</p>

<p>Mme Lerat, Coupeau's eldest sister, was a tall, thin woman,
very masculine in appearance and talking through her nose,
wearing a puce-colored dress that was much too loose for her. It
was profusely trimmed with fringe, which made her look like a
lean dog just coming out of the water. She brandished an umbrella
as she talked, as if it had been a walking stick. As she kissed
Gervaise she said:</p>

<p>"You have no idea how the wind blows, and it is as hot as a
blast from a furnace!"</p>

<p>Everybody at once declared they had felt the storm coming all
the morning. Three days of extreme heat, someone said, always
ended in a gust.</p>

<p>"It will blow over," said Coupeau with an air of confidence,
"but I wish my sister would come, all the same."</p>

<p>Mme Lorilleux, in fact, was very late. Mme Lerat had called
for her, but she had not then begun to dress. "And," said the
widow in her brother's ear, "you never saw anything like the
temper she was in!"</p>

<p>They waited another half-hour. The sky was growing blacker and
blacker. Clouds of dust were rising along the street, and down
came the rain. And it was in the first shower that Mme Lorilleux
arrived, out of temper and out of breath, struggling with her
umbrella, which she could not close.</p>

<p>"I had ten minds," she exclaimed, "to turn back. I wanted you
to wait until next Saturday. I knew it would rain today&mdash;I
was certain of it!"</p>

<p>Coupeau tried to calm her, but she quickly snubbed him. Was it
he, she would like to know, who was to pay for her dress if it
were spoiled?</p>

<p>She wore black silk, so tight that the buttonholes were burst
out, and it showed white on the shoulders,&mdash;while the skirt
was so scant that she could not take a long step.</p>

<p>The other women, however, looked at her silk with envy.</p>

<p>She took no notice of Gervaise, who sat by the side of her
mother-in-law. She called to Lorilleux and with his aid carefully
wiped every drop of rain from her dress with her
handkerchief.</p>

<p>Meanwhile the shower ceased abruptly, but the storm was
evidently not over, for sharp flashes of lightning darted through
the black clouds.</p>

<p>Suddenly the rain poured down again. The men stood in front of
the door with their hands in their pockets, dismally
contemplating the scene. The women crouched together with their
hands over their eyes. They were in such terror they could not
talk; when the thunder was heard farther off they all plucked up
their spirits and became impatient, but a fine rain was falling
that looked interminable.</p>

<p>"What are we to do?" cried Mme Lorilleux crossly.</p>

<p>Then Mile Remanjon timidly observed that the sun perhaps would
soon be out, and they might yet go into the country; upon this
there was one general shout of derision.</p>

<p>"Nice walking it would be! And how pleasant the grass would be
to sit upon!"</p>

<p>Something must be done, however, to get rid of the time until
dinner. Bibi-la-Grillade proposed cards; Mme Lerat suggested
storytelling. To each proposition a thousand objections were
offered. Finally when Lorilleux proposed that the party should
visit the tomb of Abelard and Heloise his wife's indignation
burst forth.</p>

<p>She had dressed in her best only to be drenched in the rain
and to spend the day in a wineshop, it seemed! She had had enough
of the whole thing and she would go home. Coupeau and Lorilleux
held the door, she exclaiming violently:</p>

<p>"Let me go; I tell you I will go!"</p>

<p>Her husband having induced her to listen to reason, Coupeau
went to Gervaise, who was calmly conversing with her
mother-in-law and Mme Fauconnier.</p>

<p>"Have you nothing to propose?" he asked, not venturing to add
any term of endearment.</p>

<p>"No," she said with a smile, "but I am ready to do anything
you wish. I am very well suited as I am."</p>

<p>Her face was indeed as sunny as a morning in May. She spoke to
everyone kindly and sympathetically. During the storm she had sat
with her eyes riveted on the clouds, as if by the light of those
lurid flashes she was reading the solemn book of the future.</p>

<p>M. Madinier had proposed nothing; he stood leaning against the
counter with a pompous air; he spat upon the ground, wiped his
mouth with the back of his hand and rolled his eyes about.</p>

<p>"We could go to the Musée du Louvre, I suppose," and he
smoothed his chin while awaiting the effect of this
proposition.</p>

<p>"There are antiquities there&mdash;statues, pictures, lots of
things. It is very instructive. Have any of you been there?" he
asked.</p>

<p>They all looked at each other. Gervaise had never even heard
of the place, nor had Mme Fauconnier nor Boche. Coupeau thought
he had been there one Sunday, but he was not sure, but Mme
Lorilleux, on whom Madinier's air of importance had produced a
profound impression, approved of the idea. The day was wasted
anyway; therefore, if a little instruction could be got it would
be well to try it. As the rain was still falling, they borrowed
old umbrellas of every imaginable hue from the establishment and
started forth for the Musée du Louvre.</p>

<p>There were twelve of them, and they walked in couples, Mme
Lorilleux with Madinier, to whom she grumbled all the way.</p>

<p>"We know nothing about her," she said, "not even where he
picked her up. My husband has already lent them ten francs, and
whoever heard of a bride without a single relation? She said she
had a sister in Paris. Where is she today, I should like to
know!"</p>

<p>She checked herself and pointed to Gervaise, whose lameness
was very perceptible as she descended the hill.</p>

<p>"Just look at her!" she muttered. "Wooden legs!"</p>

<p>This epithet was heard by Mme Fauconnier, who took up the
cudgels for Gervaise who, she said, was as neat as a pin and
worked like a tiger.</p>

<p>The wedding party, coming out of La Rue St-Denis, crossed the
boulevard under their umbrellas amid the pouring rain, driving
here and there among the carriages. The drivers, as they pulled
up their horses, shouted to them to look out, with an oath. On
the gray and muddy sidewalk the procession was very
conspicuous&mdash;the blue dress of the bride, the canary-colored
breeches of one of the men, Madinier's square-tailed
coat&mdash;all gave a carnivallike air to the group. But it was
the hats of the party that were the most amusing, for they were
of all heights, sizes and styles. The shopkeepers on the
boulevard crowded to their windows to enjoy the drollery of the
sight. The wedding procession, quite undisturbed by the
observation it excited, went gaily on. They stopped for a moment
on the Place des Victoires&mdash;the bride's shoestring was
untied&mdash;she fastened it at the foot of the statue of Louis
XIV, her friends waiting as she did so.</p>

<p>Finally they reached the Louvre. Here Madinier politely asked
permission to take the head of the party; the place was so large,
he said, that it was a very easy thing to lose oneself; he knew
the prettiest rooms and the things best worth seeing, because he
had often been there with an artist, a very intelligent fellow,
from whom a great manufacturer of pasteboard boxes bought
pictures.</p>

<p>The party entered the museum of Assyrian antiquities. They
shivered and walked about, examining the colossal statues, the
gods in black marble, strange beasts and monstrosities, half cats
and half women. This was not amusing, and an inscription in
Phoenician characters appalled them. Who on earth had ever read
such stuff as that? It was meaningless nonsense!</p>

<p>But Madinier shouted to them from the stairs, "Come on! That
is nothing! Much more interesting things up here, I assure
you!"</p>

<p>The severe nudity of the great staircase cast a gloom over
their spirits; an usher in livery added to their awe, and it was
with great respect and on the tips of their toes they entered the
French gallery.</p>

<p>How many statues! How many pictures! They wished they had all
the money they had cost.</p>

<p>In the Gallerie d'Apollon the floor excited their admiration;
it was smooth as glass; even the feet of the sofas were reflected
in it. Madinier bade them look at the ceiling and at its many
beauties of decoration, but they said they dared not look up.
Then before entering the Salon Carré he pointed to the
window and said:</p>

<p>"That is the balcony where Charles IX fired on the
people!"</p>

<p>With a magnificent gesture he ordered his party to stand still
in the center of the Salon Carré.</p>

<p>"There are only chefs-d'oeuvres here," he whispered as
solemnly as if he had been in a church.</p>

<p>They walked around the salon. Gervaise asked the meaning of
one of the pictures, the <i>Noces de Cana</i>; Coupeau stopped
before <i>La Joconde</i>, declaring that it was like one of his
aunts.</p>

<p>Boche and Bibi-la-Grillade snickered and pushed each other at
the sight of the nude female figures, and the Gaudrons, husband
and wife, stood open-mouthed and deeply touched before Murillo's
Virgin.</p>

<p>When they had been once around the room Madinier, who was
quite attentive to Mme Lorilleux on account of her silk gown,
proposed they should do it over again; it was well worth it, he
said.</p>

<p>He never hesitated in replying to any question which she
addressed to him in her thirst for information, and when she
stopped before Titian's Mistress, whose yellow hair struck her as
like her own, he told her it was a mistress of Henri IV, who was
the heroine of a play then running at the Ambigu.</p>

<p>The wedding party finally entered the long gallery devoted to
the Italian and Flemish schools of art. The pictures were all
meaningless to them, and their heads were beginning to ache. They
felt a thrill of interest, however, in the copyists with their
easels, who painted without being disturbed by spectators. The
artists scattered through the rooms had heard that a primitive
wedding party was making a tour of the Louvre and hurried with
laughing faces to enjoy the scene, while the weary bride and
bridegroom, accompanied by their friends, clumsily moved about
over the shining, resounding floors much like cattle let loose
and with quite as keen an appreciation of the marvelous beauties
about them.</p>

<p>The women vowed their backs were broken standing so long, and
Madinier, declaring he knew the way, said they would leave after
he had shown them a certain room to which he could go with his
eyes shut. But he was very much mistaken. Salon succeeded to
salon, and finally the party went up a flight of stairs and found
themselves among cannons and other instruments of war. Madinier,
unwilling to confess that he had lost himself, wandered
distractedly about, declaring that the doors had been changed.
The party began to feel that they were there for life, when
suddenly to their great joy they heard the cry of the janitors
resounding from room to room.</p>

<p>"Time to close the doors!"</p>

<p>They meekly followed one of them, and when they were outside
they uttered a sigh of relief as they put up their umbrellas once
more, but one and all affected great pleasure at having been to
the Louvre.</p>

<p>The clock struck four. There were two hours to dispose of
before dinner. The women would have liked to rest, but the men
were more energetic and proposed another walk, during which so
tremendous a shower fell that umbrellas were useless and dresses
were irretrievably ruined. Then M. Madinier suggested that they
should ascend the column on the Place Vendôme.</p>

<p>"It is not a bad idea," cried the men. And the procession
began the ascent of the spiral staircase, which Boche said was so
old that he could feel it shake. This terrified the ladies, who
uttered little shrieks, but Coupeau said nothing; his arm was
around his wife's waist, and just as they emerged upon the
platform he kissed her.</p>

<p>"Upon my word!" cried Mme Lorilleux, much scandalized.</p>

<p>Madinier again constituted himself master of ceremonies and
pointed out all the monuments, but Mme Fauconnier would not put
her foot outside the little door; she would not look down on that
pavement for all the world, she said, and the party soon tired of
this amusement and descended the stairs. At the foot Madinier
wished to pay, but Coupeau interfered and put into the hand of
the guard twenty-four sous-two for each person. It was now
half-past five; they had just time to get to the restaurant, but
Coupeau proposed a glass of vermouth first, and they entered a
cabaret for that purpose.</p>

<p>When they returned to the Moulin d'Argent they found Mme Boche
with the two children, talking to Mamma Coupeau near the table,
already spread and waiting. When Gervaise saw Claude and Etienne
she took them both on her knees and kissed them lovingly.</p>

<p>"Have they been good?" she asked.</p>

<p>"I should think Coupeau would feel rather queer!" said Mme
Lorilleux as she looked on grimly.</p>

<p>Gervaise had been calm and smiling all day, but she had
quietly watched her husband with the Lorilleuxs. She thought
Coupeau was afraid of his sister&mdash;cowardly, in fact. The
evening previous he had said he did not care a sou for their
opinion on any subject and that they had the tongues of vipers,
but now he was with them, he was like a whipped hound, hung on
their words and anticipated their wishes. This troubled his wife,
for it augured ill, she thought, for their future happiness.</p>

<p>"We won't wait any longer for Mes-Bottes," cried Coupeau. "We
are all here but him, and his scent is good! Surely he can't be
waiting for us still at St-Denis!"</p>

<p>The guests, in good spirits once more, took their seats with a
great clatter of chairs.</p>

<p>Gervaise was between Lorilleux and Madinier, and Coupeau
between Mme Fauconnier and his sister Mme Lorilleux. The others
seated themselves.</p>

<p>"No one has asked a blessing," said Boche as the ladies pulled
the tablecloth well over their skirts to protect them from
spots.</p>

<p>But Mme Lorilleux frowned at this poor jest. The vermicelli
soup, which was cold and greasy, was eaten with noisy haste. Two
garçons served them, wearing aprons of a very doubtful
white and greasy vests.</p>

<p>Through the four windows, open on the courtyard and its
acacias, streamed the light, soft and warm, after the storm. The
trees, bathed in the setting sun, imparted a cool, green tinge to
the dingy room, and the shadows of the waving branches and
quivering leaves danced over the cloth.</p>

<p>There were two fly-specked mirrors at either end of the room,
which indefinitely lengthened the table spread with thick china.
Every time the <i>garçons</i> opened the door into the
kitchen there came a strong smell of burning fat.</p>

<p>"Don't let us all talk at once!" said Boche as a dead silence
fell on the room, broken by the abrupt entrance of
Mes-Bottes.</p>

<p>"You are nice people!" he exclaimed. "I have been waiting for
you until I am wet through and have a fishpond in each
pocket."</p>

<p>This struck the circle as the height of wit, and they all
laughed while he ordered the <i>garçon</i> to and fro. He
devoured three plates of soup and enormous slices of bread. The
head of the establishment came and looked in in considerable
anxiety; a laugh ran around the room. Mes-Bottes recalled to
their memories a day when he had eaten twelve hard-boiled eggs
and drunk twelve glasses of wine while the clock was striking
twelve.</p>

<p>There was a brief silence. A waiter placed on the table a
rabbit stew in a deep dish. Coupeau turned round.</p>

<p>"Say, boy, is that a gutter rabbit? It mews still."</p>

<p>And the low mewing of a cat seemed, indeed, to come from the
dish. This delicate joke was perpetrated by Coupeau in the
throat, without the smallest movement of his lips. This feat
always met with such success that he never ordered a meal
anywhere without a rabbit stew. The ladies wiped their eyes with
their napkins because they laughed so much.</p>

<p>Mme Fauconnier begged for the head&mdash;she adored the
head&mdash;and Boche asked especially for onions.</p>

<p>Mme Lerat compressed her lips and said morosely:</p>

<p>"Of course. I might have known that!"</p>

<p>Mme Lerat was a hard-working woman. No man had ever put his
nose within her door since her widowhood, and yet her instincts
were thoroughly bad; every word uttered by others bore to her
ears a double meaning, a coarse allusion sometimes so deeply
veiled that no one but herself could grasp its meaning.</p>

<p>Boche leaned over her with a sensual smile and entreated an
explanation. She shook her head.</p>

<p>"Of course," she repeated. "Onions! I knew it!"</p>

<p>Everybody was talking now, each of his own trade. Madinier
declared that boxmaking was an art, and he cited the New Year
bonbon boxes as wonders of luxury. Lorilleux talked of his
chains, of their delicacy and beauty. He said that in former
times jewelers wore swords at their sides. Coupeau described a
weathercock made by one of his comrades out of tin. Mme Lerat
showed Bibi-la-Grillade how a rose stem was made by rolling the
handle of her knife between her bony fingers, and Mme Fauconnier
complained loudly of one of her apprentices who the night before
had badly scorched a pair of linen sheets.</p>

<p>"It is no use to talk!" cried Lorilleux, striking his fist on
the table. "Gold is gold!"</p>

<p>A profound silence followed the utterance of this truism, amid
which arose from the other end of the table the piping tones of
Mlle Remanjon's voice as she said:</p>

<p>"And then I sew on the skirt. I stick a pin in the head to
hold on the cap, and it is done. They sell for three cents."</p>

<p>She was describing her dolls to Mes-Bottes, whose jaws worked
steadily, like machinery.</p>

<p>He did not listen, but he nodded at intervals, with his eyes
fixed on the <i>garçons</i> to see that they carried away
no dishes that were not emptied.</p>

<p>There had been veal cutlets and string beans served. As a
<i>roti,</i> two lean chickens on a bed of water cresses were
brought in. The room was growing very warm; the sun was lingering
on the tops of the acacias, but the room was growing dark. The
men threw off their coats and ate in their shirt sleeves.</p>

<p>"Mme Boche," cried Gervaise, "please don't let those children
eat so much."</p>

<p>But Mme Coupeau interposed and declared that for once in a
while a little fit of indigestion would do them no harm.</p>

<p>Mme Boche accused her husband of holding Mme Lerat's hand
under the table.</p>

<p>Madinier talked politics. He was a Republican, and
Bibi-la-Grillade and himself were soon in a hot discussion.</p>

<p>"Who cares," cried Coupeau, "whether we have a king, an
emperor or a president, so long as we earn our five francs per
day!"</p>

<p>Lorilleux shook his head. He was born on the same day as the
Comte de Chambord, September 29, 1820, and this coincidence dwelt
in his mind. He seemed to feel that there was a certain
connection between the return of the king to France and his own
personal fortunes. He did not say distinctly what he expected,
but it was clear that it was something very agreeable.</p>

<p>The dessert was now on the table&mdash;a floating island
flanked by two plates of cheese and two of fruit. The floating
island was a great success. Mes-Bottes ate all the cheese and
called for more bread. And then as some of the custard was left
in the dish, he pulled it toward him and ate it as if it had been
soup.</p>

<p>"How extraordinary!" said Madinier, filled with
admiration.</p>

<p>The men rose to light their pipes and, as they passed
Mes-Bottes, asked him how he felt.</p>

<p>Bibi-la-Grillade lifted him from the floor, chair and all.</p>

<p>"Zounds!" he cried. "The fellow's weight has doubled!"</p>

<p>Coupeau declared his friend had only just begun his night's
work, that he would eat bread until dawn. The waiters, pale with
fright, disappeared. Boche went downstairs on a tour of
inspection and stated that the establishment was in a state of
confusion, that the proprietor, in consternation, had sent out to
all the bakers in the neighborhood, that the house, in fact, had
an utterly ruined aspect.</p>

<p>"I should not like to take you to board," said Mme
Gaudron.</p>

<p>"Let us have a punch," cried Mes-Bottes.</p>

<p>But Coupeau, seeing his wife's troubled face, interfered and
said no one should drink anything more. They had all had
enough.</p>

<p>This declaration met with the approval of some of the party,
but the others sided with Mes-Bottes.</p>

<p>"Those who are thirsty are thirsty," he said. "No one need
drink that does not wish to do so, I am sure." And he added with
a wink, "There will be all the more for those who do!"</p>

<p>Then Coupeau said they would settle the account, and his
friend could do as he pleased afterward.</p>

<p>Alas! Mes-Bottes could produce only three francs; he had
changed his five-franc piece, and the remainder had melted away
somehow on the road from St-Denis. He handed over the three
francs, and Coupeau, greatly indignant, borrowed the other two
from his brother-in-law, who gave the money secretly, being
afraid of his wife.</p>

<p>M. Madinier had taken a plate. The ladies each laid down their
five francs quietly and timidly, and then the men retreated to
the other end of the room and counted up the amount, and each man
added to his subscription five sous for the
<i>garçon</i>.</p>

<p>But when M. Madinier sent for the proprietor the little
assembly were shocked at hearing him say that this was not all;
there were "extras."</p>

<p>As this was received with exclamations of rage, he went into
explanations. He had furnished twenty-five liters of wine instead
of twenty, as he agreed. The floating island was an addition, on
seeing that the dessert was somewhat scanty, whereupon ensued a
formidable quarrel. Coupeau declared he would not pay a sou of
the extras.</p>

<p>"There is your money," he said; "take it, and never again will
one of us step a foot under your roof!"</p>

<p>"I want six francs more," muttered the man.</p>

<p>The women gathered about in great indignation; not a centime
would they give, they declared.</p>

<p>Mme Fauconnier had had a wretched dinner; she said she could
have had a better one at home for forty sous. Such arrangements
always turned out badly, and Mme Gaudron declared aloud that if
people wanted their friends at their weddings they usually
invited them out and out.</p>

<p>Gervaise took refuge with her mother-in-law in a distant
window, feeling heartily ashamed of the whole scene.</p>

<p>M. Madinier went downstairs with the man, and low mutterings
of the storm reached the party. At the end of a half-hour he
reappeared, having yielded to the extent of paying three francs,
but no one was satisfied, and they all began a discussion in
regard to the extras.</p>

<p>The evening was spoiled, as was Mme Lerat's dress; there was
no end to the chapter of accidents.</p>

<p>"I know," cried Mme Lorilleux, "that the <i>garçon</i>
spilled gravy from the chickens down my back." She twisted and
turned herself before the mirror until she succeeded in finding
the spot.</p>

<p>"Yes, I knew it," she cried, "and he shall pay for it, as true
as I live. I wish I had remained at home!"</p>

<p>She left in a rage, and Lorilleux at her heels.</p>

<p>When Coupeau saw her go he was in actual consternation, and
Gervaise saw that it was best to make a move at once. Mme Boche
had agreed to keep the children with her for a day or two.</p>

<p>Coupeau and his wife hurried out in the hope of overtaking Mme
Lorilleux which they soon did. Lorilleux, with the kindly desire
of making all smooth said:</p>

<p>"We will go to your door with you."</p>

<p>"Your door, indeed!" cried his wife, and then pleasantly went
on to express her surprise that they did not postpone their
marriage until they had saved enough to buy a little furniture
and move away from that hole up under the roof.</p>

<p>"But I have given up that room," said her brother. "We shall
have the one Gervaise occupies; it is larger."</p>

<p>Mme Lorilleux forgot herself; she wheeled around suddenly.</p>

<p>"What!" she exclaimed. "You are going to live in Wooden Legs'
room?"</p>

<p>Gervaise turned pale. This name she now heard for the first
time, and it was like a slap in the face. She heard much more in
her sister-in-law's exclamation than met the ear. That room to
which allusion was made was the one where she had lived with
Lantier for a whole month, where she had wept such bitter tears,
but Coupeau did not understand that; he was only wounded by the
name applied to his wife.</p>

<p>"It is hardly wise of you," he said sullenly, "to nickname
people after that fashion, as perhaps you are not aware of what
you are called in your <i>Quartier</i>. Cow's-Tail is not a very
nice name, but they have given it to you on account of your hair.
Why should we not keep that room? It is a very good one."</p>

<p>Mme Lorilleux would not answer. Her dignity was sadly
disturbed at being called Cow's-Tail.</p>

<p>They walked on in silence until they reached the Hôtel
Boncœur, and just as Coupeau gave the two women a push toward
each other and bade them kiss and be friends, a man who wished to
pass them on the right gave a violent lurch to the left and came
between them.</p>

<p>"Look out!" cried Lorilleux. "It is Father Bazonge. He is
pretty full tonight."</p>

<p>Gervaise, in great terror, flew toward the door. Father
Bazonge was a man of fifty; his clothes were covered with mud
where he had fallen in the street.</p>

<p>"You need not be afraid," continued Lorilleux; "he will do you
no harm. He is a neighbor of ours&mdash;the third room on the
left in our corridor."</p>

<p>But Father Bazonge was talking to Gervaise. "I am not going to
eat you, little one," he said. "I have drunk too much, I know
very well, but when the work is done the machinery should be
greased a little now and then."</p>

<p>Gervaise retreated farther into the doorway and with
difficulty kept back a sob. She nervously entreated Coupeau to
take the man away.</p>

<p>Bazonge staggered off, muttering as he did so:</p>

<p>"You won't mind it so much one of these days, my dear. I know
something about women. They make a great fuss, but they get used
to it all the same."
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2>CHAPTER IV<br/>
A HAPPY HOME</h2>

<p>Four years of hard and incessant toil followed this day.
Gervaise and Coupeau were wise and prudent. They worked hard and
took a little relaxation on Sundays. The wife worked twelve hours
of the twenty-four with Mme Fauconnier and yet found time to keep
her own home like waxwork. The husband was never known to be
tipsy but brought home his wages and smoked his pipe at his own
window at night before going to bed. They were the bright and
shining lights, the good example of the whole <i>Quartier</i>,
and as they made jointly about nine francs per day, it was easy
to see they were putting by money.</p>

<p>But in the first few months of their married life they were
obliged to trim their sails closely and had some trouble to make
both ends meet. They took a great dislike to the Hôtel
Boncœur. They longed for a home of their own with their own
furniture. They estimated the cost over and over again and
decided that for three hundred and fifty francs they could
venture, but they had little hope of saving such a sum in less
than two years, when a stroke of good luck befell them.</p>

<p>An old gentleman in Plassans sent for Claude to place him at
school. He was a very eccentric old gentleman, fond of pictures
and art. Claude was a great expense to his mother, and when
Etienne alone was at home they saved the three hundred and fifty
francs in seven months. The day they purchased their furniture
they took a long and happy walk together, for it was an important
step they had taken&mdash;important not only in their own eyes
but in those of the people around them.</p>

<p>For two months they had been looking for an apartment. They
wished, of all things, to take one in the old house where Mme
Lorilleux lived, but there was not one single room to be rented,
and they were compelled to relinquish the idea. Gervaise was
reconciled to this more easily, since she did not care to be
thrown in any closer contact with the Lorilleuxs. They looked
further. It was essential that Gervaise should be near her friend
and employer Mme Fauconnier, and they finally succeeded in their
search and were indeed in wonderful luck, for they obtained a
large room with a kitchen and tiny bedroom just opposite the
establishment of the laundress. It was a small house, two
stories, with one steep staircase, and was divided into two
lodgings&mdash;the one on the right, the other on the left, while
the lower floor was occupied by a carriage maker.</p>

<p>Gervaise was delighted. It seemed to her that she was once
more in the country&mdash;no neighbors, no gossip, no
interference&mdash;and from the place where she stood and ironed
all day at Mme Fauconnier's she could see the windows of her own
room.</p>

<p>They moved in the month of April. Gervaise was then near her
confinement, but it was she who cleaned and put in order her new
home. Every penny as of consequence, she said with pride, now
that they would soon have another other mouth to feed. She rubbed
her furniture, which was of old mahogany, good, but secondhand,
until it shone like glass and was quite brokenhearted when she
discovered a scratch. She held her breath if she knocked it when
sweeping. The commode was her especial pride; it was so dignified
and stately. Her pet dream, which, however, she kept to herself,
was someday to have a clock to put in the center of the marble
slab. If there had not been a baby in prospect she would have
purchased this much-coveted article at once, but she sighed and
dismissed the thought.</p>

<p>Etienne's bed was placed in the tiny room, almost a closet,
and there was room for the cradle by its side. The kitchen was
about as big as one's hand and very dark, but by leaving the door
open one could see pretty well, and as Gervaise had no big
dinners to get she managed comfortably. The large room was her
pride. In the morning the white curtains of the alcove were
drawn, and the bedroom was transformed into a lovely dining room,
with its table in the middle, the commode and a wardrobe opposite
each other. A tiny stove kept them warm in cold weather for seven
sous per day.</p>

<p>Coupeau ornamented the walls with several engravings&mdash;one
of a marshal of France on a spirited steed, with his baton in his
hand. Above the commode were the photographs of the family,
arranged in two lines, with an antique china
<i>bénitier</i> between. On the corners of the commode a
bust of Pascal faced another of Béranger&mdash;one grave,
the other smiling. It was, indeed, a fair and pleasant home.</p>

<p>"How much do you think we pay here?" Gervaise would ask of
each new visitor.</p>

<p>And when too high an estimate was given she was charmed.</p>

<p>"One hundred and fifty francs&mdash;not a penny more," she
would exclaim. "Is it not wonderful?"</p>

<p>No small portion of the woman's satisfaction arose from an
acacia which grew in her courtyard, one of whose branches crossed
her window, and the scanty foliage was a whole wilderness to
her.</p>

<p>Her baby was born one afternoon. She would not allow her
husband to be sent for, and when he came gaily into the room he
was welcomed by his pale wife, who whispered to him as he stooped
over her:</p>

<p>"My dear, it is a girl."</p>

<p>"All right!" said the tinworker, jesting to hide his real
emotion. "I ordered a girl. You always do just what I want!"</p>

<p>He took up the child.</p>

<p>"Let us have a good look at you, young lady! The down on the
top of your head is pretty black, I think. Now you must never
squall but be as good and reasonable always as your papa and
mamma."</p>

<p>Gervaise, with a faint smile and sad eyes, looked at her
daughter. She shook her head. She would have preferred a boy,
because boys run less risks in a place like Paris. The nurse took
the baby from the father's hands and told Gervaise she must not
talk. Coupeau said he must go and tell his mother and sister the
news, but he was famished and must eat something first. His wife
was greatly disturbed at seeing him wait upon himself, and she
tossed about a little and complained that she could not make him
comfortable.</p>

<p>"You must be quiet," said the nurse again.</p>

<p>"It is lucky you are here, or she would be up and cutting my
bread for me," said Coupeau.</p>

<p>He finally set forth to announce the news to his family and
returned in an hour with them all.</p>

<p>The Lorilleuxs, under the influence of the prosperity of their
brother and his wife, had become extremely amiable toward them
and only lifted their eyebrows in a significant sort of way, as
much as to say that they could tell something if they
pleased.</p>

<p>"You must not talk, you understand," said Coupeau, "but they
would come and take a peep at you, and I am going to make them
some coffee."</p>

<p>He disappeared into the kitchen, and the women discussed the
size of the baby and whom it resembled. Meanwhile Coupeau was
heard banging round in the kitchen, and his wife nervously called
out to him and told him where the things were that he wanted, but
her husband rose superior to all difficulties and soon appeared
with the smoking coffeepot, and they all seated themselves around
the table, except the nurse, who drank a cup standing and then
departed; all was going well, and she was not needed. If she was
wanted in the morning they could send for her.</p>

<p>Gervaise lay with a faint smile on her lips. She only half
heard what was said by those about her. She had no strength to
speak; it seemed to her that she was dead. She heard the word
baptism. Coupeau saw no necessity for the ceremony and was quite
sure, too, that the child would take cold. In his opinion, the
less one had to do with priests, the better. His mother was
horrified and called him a heathen, while the Lorilleuxs claimed
to be religious people also.</p>

<p>"It had better be on Sunday," said his sister in a decided
tone, and Gervaise consented with a little nod. Everybody kissed
her and then the baby, addressing it with tender epithets, as if
it could understand, and departed.</p>

<p>When Coupeau was alone with his wife he took her hand and held
it while he finished his pipe.</p>

<p>"I could not help their coming," he said, "but I am sure they
have given you the headache." And the rough, clumsy man kissed
his wife tenderly, moved by a great pity for all she had borne
for his sake.</p>

<p>And Gervaise was very happy. She told him so and said her only
anxiety now was to be on her feet again as soon as possible, for
they had another mouth to feed. He soothed her and asked if she
could not trust him to look out for their little one.</p>

<p>In the morning when he went to his work he sent Mme Boche to
spend the day with his wife, who at night told him she never
could consent to lie still any longer and see a stranger going
about her room, and the next day she was up and would not be
taken care of again. She had no time for such nonsense! She said
it would do for rich women but not for her, and in another week
she was at Mme Fauconnier's again at work.</p>

<p>Mme Lorilleux, who was the baby's godmother, appeared on
Saturday evening with a cap and baptismal robe, which she had
bought cheap because they had lost their first freshness. The
next day Lorilleux, as godfather, gave Gervaise six pounds of
sugar. They flattered themselves they knew how to do things
properly and that evening, at the supper given by Coupeau, did
not appear empty-handed. Lorilleux came with a couple of bottles
of wine under each arm, and his wife brought a large custard
which was a specialty of a certain restaurant.</p>

<p>Yes, they knew how to do things, these people, but they also
liked to tell of what they did, and they told everyone they saw
in the next month that they had spent twenty francs, which came
to the ears of Gervaise, who was none too well pleased.</p>

<p>It was at this supper that Gervaise became acquainted with her
neighbors on the other side of the house. These were Mme Goujet,
a widow, and her son. Up to this time they had exchanged a good
morning when they met on the stairs or in the street, but as Mme
Goujet had rendered some small services on the first day of her
illness, Gervaise invited them on the occasion of the
baptism.</p>

<p>These people were from the <i>Department du Nond</i>. The
mother repaired laces, while the son, a blacksmith by trade,
worked in a factory.</p>

<p>They had lived in their present apartment for five years.
Beneath the peaceful calm of their lives lay a great sorrow.
Goujet, the husband and father, had killed a man in a fit of
furious intoxication and then, while in prison, had choked
himself with his pocket handkerchief. His widow and child left
Lille after this and came to Paris, with the weight of this
tragedy on their hearts and heads, and faced the future with
indomitable courage and sweet patience. Perhaps they were
overproud and reserved, for they held themselves aloof from those
about them. Mme Goujet always wore mourning, and her pale, serene
face was encircled with nunlike bands of white. Goujet was a
colossus of twenty-three with a clear, fresh complexion and
honest eyes. At the manufactory he went by the name of the
Gueule-d'Or on account of his beautiful blond beard.</p>

<p>Gervaise took a great fancy to these people and when she first
entered their apartment and was charmed with the exquisite
cleanliness of all she saw. Mme Goujet opened the door into her
son's room to show it to her. It was as pretty and white as the
chamber of a young girl. A narrow iron bed, white curtains and
quilt, a dressing table and bookshelves made up the furniture. A
few colored engravings were pinned against the wall, and Mme
Goujet said that her son was a good deal of a boy still&mdash;he
liked to look at pictures rather than read. Gervaise sat for an
hour with her neighbor, watching her at work with her cushion,
its numberless pins and the pretty lace.</p>

<p>The more she saw of her new friends the better Gervaise liked
them. They were frugal but not parsimonious. They were the
admiration of the neighborhood. Goujet was never seen with a hole
or a spot on his garments. He was very polite to all but a little
diffident, in spite of his height and broad shoulders. The girls
in the street were much amused to see him look away when they met
him; he did not fancy their ways&mdash;their forward boldness and
loud laughs. One day he came home tipsy. His mother uttered no
word of reproach but brought out a picture of his father which
was piously preserved in her wardrobe. And after that lesson
Goujet drank no more liquor, though he conceived no hatred for
wine.</p>

<p>On Sunday he went out with his mother, who was his idol. He
went to her with all his troubles and with all his joys, as he
had done when little.</p>

<p>At first he took no interest in Gervaise, but after a while he
began to like her and treated her like a sister, with abrupt
familiarity.</p>

<p>Cadet-Cassis, who was a thorough Parisian, thought Gueule-d'Or
very stupid. What was the sense of turning away from all the
pretty girls he met in the street? But this did not prevent the
two young fellows from liking each other very heartily.</p>

<p>For three years the lives of these people flowed tranquilly on
without an event. Gervaise had been elevated in the laundry where
she worked, had higher wages and decided to place Etienne at
school. Notwithstanding all her expenses of the household, they
were able to save twenty and thirty francs each month. When these
savings amounted to six hundred francs Gervaise could not rest,
so tormented was she by ambitious dreams. She wished to open a
small establishment herself and hire apprentices in her turn. She
hesitated, naturally, to take the definite steps and said they
would look around for a shop that would answer their purpose;
their money in the savings bank was quietly rolling up. She had
bought her clock, the object of her ambition; it was to be paid
for in a year&mdash;so much each month. It was a wonderful clock,
rosewood with fluted columns and gilt moldings and pendulum. She
kept her bankbook under the glass shade, and often when she was
thinking of her shop she stood with her eyes fixed on the clock,
as if she were waiting for some especial and solemn moment.</p>

<p>The Coupeaus and the Goujets now went out on Sundays together.
It was an orderly party with a dinner at some quiet restaurant.
The men drank a glass or two of wine and came home with the
ladies and counted up and settled the expenditures of the day
before they separated. The Lorilleuxs were bitterly jealous of
these new friends of their brother's. They declared it had a very
queer look to see him and his wife always with strangers rather
than with his own family, and Mme Lorilleux began to say hateful
things again of Gervaise. Mme Lerat, on the contrary, took her
part, while Mamma Coupeau tried to please everyone.</p>

<p>The day that Nana&mdash;which was the pet name given to the
little girl&mdash;was three years old Coupeau, on coming in,
found his wife in a state of great excitement. She refused to
give any explanation, saying, in fact, there really was nothing
the matter, but she finally became so abstracted that she stood
still with the plates in her hand as she laid the table for
dinner, and her husband insisted on an explanation.</p>

<p>"If you must know," she said, "that little shop in La Rue de
la Goutte-d'Or is vacant. I heard so only an hour ago, and it
struck me all of a heap!"</p>

<p>It was a very nice shop in the very house of which they had so
often thought. There was the shop itself&mdash;a back
room&mdash;and two others. They were small, to be sure, but
convenient and well arranged; only she thought it dear&mdash;five
hundred francs.</p>

<p>"You asked the price then?"</p>

<p>"Yes, I asked it just out of curiosity," she answered with an
air of indifference, "but it is too dear, decidedly too dear. It
would be unwise, I think, to take it."</p>

<p>But she could talk of nothing else the whole evening. She drew
the plan of the rooms on the margin of a newspaper, and as she
talked she measured the furniture, as if they were to move the
next day. Then Coupeau, seeing her great desire to have the
place, declared he would see the owner the next morning, for it
was possible he would take less than five hundred francs, but how
would she like to live so near his sister, whom she detested?</p>

<p>Gervaise was displeased at this and said she detested no one
and even defended the Lorilleuxs, declaring they were not so bad,
after all. And when Coupeau was asleep her busy brain was at work
arranging the rooms which as yet they had not decided to
hire.</p>

<p>The next day when she was alone she lifted the shade from the
clock and opened her bankbook. Just to think that her shop and
future prosperity lay between those dirty leaves!</p>

<p>Before going to her work she consulted Mme Goujet, who
approved of the plan. With a husband like hers, who never drank,
she could not fail of success. At noon she called on her
sister-in-law to ask her advice, for she did not wish to have the
air of concealing anything from the family.</p>

<p>Mme Lorilleux was confounded. What, did Wooden Legs think of
having an establishment of her own? And with an envious heart she
stammered out that it would be very well, certainly, but when she
had recovered herself a little she began to talk of the dampness
of the courtyard and of the darkness of the
<i>rez-de-chaussée</i>. Oh yes, it was a capital place for
rheumatism, but of course if her mind was made up anything she
could say would make no difference.</p>

<p>That night Gervaise told her husband that if he had thrown any
obstacles in the way of her taking the shop she believed she
should have fallen sick and died, so great was her longing. But
before they came to any decision they must see if a diminution of
the rent could be obtained.</p>

<p>"We can go tomorrow if you say so," was her husband's reply;
"you can call for me at six o'clock."</p>

<p>Coupeau was then completing the roof of a three-storied house
and was laying the very last sheets of zinc. It was May and a
cloudless evening. The sun was low in the horizon, and against
the blue sky the figure of Coupeau was clearly defined as he cut
his zinc as quietly as a tailor might have cut out a pair of
breeches in his workshop. His assistant, a lad of seventeen, was
blowing up the furnace with a pair of bellows, and at each puff a
great cloud of sparks arose.</p>

<p>"Put in the irons, Zidore!" shouted Coupeau.</p>

<p>The boy thrust the irons among the coals which showed only a
dull pink in the sunlight and then went to work again with his
bellows. Coupeau took up his last sheet of zinc. It was to be
placed on the edge of the roof, near the gutter. Just at that
spot the roof was very steep. The man walked along in his list
slippers much as if he had been at home, whistling a popular
melody. He allowed himself to slip a little and caught at the
chimney, calling to Zidore as he did so:</p>

<p>"Why in thunder don't you bring the irons? What are you
staring at?"</p>

<p>But Zidore, quite undisturbed, continued to stare at a cloud
of heavy black smoke that was rising in the direction of
Grenelle. He wondered if it were a fire, but he crawled with the
irons toward Coupeau, who began to solder the zinc, supporting
himself on the point of one foot or by one finger, not rashly,
but with calm deliberation and perfect coolness. He knew what he
could do and never lost his head. His pipe was in his mouth, and
he would occasionally turn to spit down into the street
below.</p>

<p>"Hallo, Madame Boche!" he cried as he suddenly caught sight of
his old friend crossing the street. "How are you today?"</p>

<p>She looked up, laughed, and a brisk conversation ensued
between the roof and the street. She stood with her hands under
her apron and her face turned up, while he, with one arm round a
flue, leaned over the side of the house.</p>

<p>"Have you seen my wife?" he asked.</p>

<p>"No indeed; is she anywhere round?"</p>

<p>"She is coming for me. Is everyone well with you?"</p>

<p>"Yes, all well, thanks. I am going to a butcher near here who
sells cheaper than up our way."</p>

<p>They raised their voices because a carriage was passing, and
this brought to a neighboring window a little old woman, who
stood in breathless horror, expecting to see the man fall from
the roof in another minute.</p>

<p>"Well, good night," cried Mme Boche. "I must not detain you
from your work."</p>

<p>Coupeau turned and took the iron Zidore held out to him. At
the same moment Mme Boche saw Gervaise coming toward her with
little Nana trotting at her side. She looked up to the roof to
tell Coupeau, but Gervaise closed her lips with an energetic
signal, and then as she reached the old concierge she said in a
low voice that she was always in deadly terror that her husband
would fall. She never dared look at him when he was in such
places.</p>

<p>"It is not very agreeable, I admit," answered Mme Boche. "My
man is a tailor, and I am spared all this."</p>

<p>"At first," continued Gervaise, "I had not a moment's peace. I
saw him in my dreams on a litter, but now I have got accustomed
to it somewhat."</p>

<p>She looked up, keeping Nana behind her skirts, lest the child
should call out and startle her father, who was at that moment on
the extreme edge. She saw the soldering iron and the tiny flame
that rose as he carefully passed it along the edges of the zinc.
Gervaise, pale with suspense and fear, raised her hands
mechanically with a gesture of supplication. Coupeau ascended the
steep roof with a slow step, then glancing down, he beheld his
wife.</p>

<p>"You are watching me, are you?" he cried gaily. "Ah, Madame
Boche, is she not a silly one? She was afraid to speak to me.
Wait ten minutes, will you?"</p>

<p>The two women stood on the sidewalk, having as much as they
could do to restrain Nana, who insisted on fishing in the
gutter.</p>

<p>The old woman still stood at the window, looking up at the
roof and waiting.</p>

<p>"Just see her," said Mme Boche. "What is she looking at?"</p>

<p>Coupeau was heard lustily singing; with the aid of a pair of
compasses he had drawn some lines and now proceeded to cut a
large fan; this he adroitly, with his tools, folded into the
shape of a pointed mushroom. Zidore was again heating the irons.
The sun was setting just behind the house, and the whole western
sky was flushed with rose, fading to a soft violet, and against
this sky the figures of the two men, immeasurably exaggerated,
stood clearly out, as well as the strange form of the zinc which
Coupeau was then manipulating.</p>

<p>"Zidore! The irons!"</p>

<p>But Zidore was not to be seen. His master, with an oath,
shouted down the scuttle window which was open near by and
finally discovered him two houses off. The boy was taking a walk,
apparently, with his scanty blond hair blowing all about his
head.</p>

<p>"Do you think you are in the country?" cried Coupeau in a
fury. "You are another Béranger, perhaps&mdash;composing
verses! Will you have the kindness to give me my irons? Whoever
heard the like? Give me my irons, I say!"</p>

<p>The irons hissed as he applied them, and he called to
Gervaise:</p>

<p>"I am coming!"</p>

<p>The chimney to which he had fitted this cap was in the center
of the roof. Gervaise stood watching him, soothed by his calm
self-possession. Nana clapped her little hands.</p>

<p>"Papa! Papa!" she cried. "Look!"</p>

<p>The father turned; his foot slipped; he rolled down the roof
slowly, unable to catch at anything.</p>

<p>"Good God!" he said in a choked voice, and he fell; his body
turned over twice and crashed into the middle of the street with
the dull thud of a bundle of wet linen.</p>

<p>Gervaise stood still. A shriek was frozen on her lips. Mme
Boche snatched Nana in her arms and hid her head that she might
not see, and the little old woman opposite, who seemed to have
waited for this scene in the drama, quietly closed her
windows.</p>

<p>Four men bore Coupeau to a druggist's at the corner, where he
lay for an hour while a litter was sent for from the Hospital
Lariboisière. He was breathing still, but that was all. Gervaise
knelt at his side, hysterically sobbing. Every minute or two, in
spite of the prohibition of the druggist, she touched him to see
if he were still warm. When the litter arrived and they spoke of
the hospital, she started up, saying violently:</p>

<p>"No&mdash;no! Not to the hospital&mdash;to our own home."</p>

<p>In vain did they tell her that the expenses would be very
great if she nursed him at home.</p>

<p>"No&mdash;no!" she said. "I will show them the way. He is my
husband, is he not? And I will take care of him myself."</p>

<p>And Coupeau was carried home, and as the litter was borne
through the Quartier the women crowded together and extolled
Gervaise. She was a little lame, to be sure, but she was very
energetic, and she would save her man.</p>

<p>Mme Boche took Nana home and then went about among her friends
to tell the story with interminable details.</p>

<p>"I saw him fall," she said. "It was all because of the child;
he was going to speak to her, when down he went. Good lord! I
trust I may never see such another sight."</p>

<p>For a week Coupeau's life hung on a thread. His family and his
friends expected to see him die from one hour to another. The
physician, an experienced physician whose every visit cost five
francs, talked of a lesion, and that word was in itself very
terrifying to all but Gervaise, who, pale from her vigils but
calm and resolute, shrugged her shoulders and would not allow
herself to be discouraged. Her man's leg was broken; that she
knew very well, "but he need not die for that!" And she watched
at his side night and day, forgetting her children and her home
and everything but him.</p>

<p>On the ninth day, when the physician told her he would
recover, she dropped, half fainting, on a chair, and at night she
slept for a couple of hours with her head on the foot of his
bed.</p>

<p>This accident to Coupeau brought all his family about him. His
mother spent the nights there, but she slept in her chair quite
comfortably. Mme Lerat came in every evening after work was over
to make inquiries.</p>

<p>The Lorilleuxs at first came three or four times each day and
brought an armchair for Gervaise, but soon quarrels and
discussions arose as to the proper way of nursing the invalid,
and Mme Lorilleux lost her temper and declared that had Gervaise
stayed at home and not gone to pester her husband when he was at
work the accident would not have happened.</p>

<p>When she saw Coupeau out of danger Gervaise allowed his family
to approach him as they saw fit. His convalescence would be a
matter of months. This again was a ground of indignation for Mme
Lorilleux.</p>

<p>"What nonsense it was," she said, "for Gervaise to take him
home! Had he gone to the hospital he would have recovered as
quickly again."</p>

<p>And then she made a calculation of what these four months
would cost: First, there was the time lost, then the physician,
the medicines, the wines and finally the meat for beef tea. Yes,
it would be a pretty sum, to be sure! If they got through it on
their savings they would do well, but she believed that the end
would be that they would find themselves head over heels in debt,
and they need expect no assistance from his family, for none of
them was rich enough to pay for sickness at home!</p>

<p>One evening Mme Lorilleux was malicious enough to say:</p>

<p>"And your shop, when do you take it? The concierge is waiting
to know what you mean to do."</p>

<p>Gervaise gasped. She had utterly forgotten the shop. She saw
the delight of these people when they believed that this plan was
given up, and from that day they never lost an occasion of
twitting her on her dream that had toppled over like a house of
cards, and she grew morbid and fancied they were pleased at the
accident to their brother which had prevented the realization of
their plans.</p>

<p>She tried to laugh and to show them she did not grudge the
money that had been expended in the restoration of her husband's
health. She did not withdraw all her savings from the bank at
once, for she had a vague hope that some miracle would intervene
which would render the sacrifice unnecessary.</p>

<p>Was it not a great comfort, she said to herself and to her
enemies, for as such she had begun to regard the Lorilleuxs, that
she had this money now to turn to in this emergency?</p>

<p>Her neighbors next door had been very kind and thoughtful to
Gervaise all through her trouble and the illness of her
husband.</p>

<p>Mme Goujet never went out without coming to inquire if there
was anything she could do, any commission she could execute. She
brought innumerable bowls of soup and, even when Gervaise was
particularly busy, washed her dishes for her. Goujet filled her
buckets every morning with fresh water, and this was an economy
of at least two sous, and in the evening came to sit with
Coupeau. He did not say much, but his companionship cheered and
comforted the invalid. He was tender and compassionate and was
thrilled by the sweetness of Gervaise's voice when she spoke to
her husband. Never had he seen such a brave, good woman; he did
not believe she sat in her chair fifteen minutes in the whole
day. She was never tired, never out of temper, and the young man
grew very fond of the poor woman as he watched her.</p>

<p>His mother had found a wife for him. A girl whose trade was
the same as her own, a lace mender, and as he did not wish to go
contrary to her desires he consented that the marriage should
take place in September.</p>

<p>But when Gervaise spoke of his future he shook his head.</p>

<p>"All women are not like you, Madame Coupeau," he said. "If
they were I should like ten wives."</p>

<p>At the end of two months Coupeau was on his feet again and
could move&mdash;with difficulty, of course&mdash;as far as the
window, where he sat with his leg on a chair. The poor fellow was
sadly shaken by his accident. He was no philosopher, and he swore
from morning until night. He said he knew every crack in the
ceiling. When he was installed in his armchair it was little
better. How long, he asked impatiently, was he expected to sit
there swathed like a mummy? And he cursed his ill luck. His
accident was a cursed shame. If his head had been disturbed by
drink it would have been different, but he was always sober, and
this was the result. He saw no sense in the whole thing!</p>

<p>"My father," he said, "broke his neck. I don't say he deserved
it, but I do say there was a reason for it. But I had not drunk a
drop, and yet over I went, just because I spoke to my child! If
there be a Father in heaven, as they say, who watches over us
all, I must say He manages things strangely enough
sometimes!"</p>

<p>And as his strength returned his trade grew strangely
distasteful to him. It was a miserable business, he said, roaming
along gutters like a cat. In his opinion there should be a law
which should compel every houseowner to tin his own roof. He
wished he knew some other trade he could follow, something that
was less dangerous.</p>

<p>For two months more Coupeau walked with a crutch and after a
while was able to get into the street and then to the outer
boulevard, where he sat on a bench in the sun. His gaiety
returned; he laughed again and enjoyed doing nothing. For the
first time in his life he felt thoroughly lazy, and indolence
seemed to have taken possession of his whole being. When he got
rid of his crutches he sauntered about and watched the buildings
which were in the process of construction in the vicinity, and he
jested with the men and indulged himself in a general abuse of
work. Of course he intended to begin again as soon as he was
quite well, but at present the mere thought made him feel ill, he
said.</p>

<p>In the afternoons Coupeau often went to his sister's
apartment; she expressed a great deal of compassion for him and
showed every attention. When he was first married he had escaped
from her influence, thanks to his affection for his wife and hers
for him. Now he fell under her thumb again; they brought him back
by declaring that he lived in mortal terror of his wife. But the
Lorilleuxs were too wise to disparage her openly; on the
contrary, they praised her extravagantly, and he told his wife
that they adored her and begged her, in her turn, to be just to
them.</p>

<p>The first quarrel in their home arose on the subject of
Etienne. Coupeau had been with his sister. He came in late and
found the children fretting for their dinner. He cuffed Etienne's
ears, bade him hold his tongue and scolded for an hour. He was
sure he did not know why he let that boy stay in the house; he
was none of his; until that day he had accepted the child as a
matter of course.</p>

<p>Three days after this he gave the boy a kick, and it was not
long before the child, when he heard him coming, ran into the
Goujets', where there was always a corner at the table for
him.</p>

<p>Gervaise had long since resumed her work. She no longer lifted
the globe of her clock to take out her bankbook; her savings were
all gone, and it was necessary to count the sous pretty closely,
for there were four mouths to feed, and they were all dependent
on the work of her two hands. When anyone found fault with
Coupeau and blamed him she always took his part.</p>

<p>"Think how much he has suffered," she said with tears in her
eyes. "Think of the shock to his nerves! Who can wonder that he
is a little sour? Wait awhile, though, until he is perfectly
well, and you will see that his temper will be as sweet as it
ever was."</p>

<p>And if anyone ventured to observe that he seemed quite well
and that he ought to go to work she would exclaim:</p>

<p>"No indeed, not yet. It would never do." She did not want him
down in his bed again. She knew what the doctor had said, and she
every day begged him to take his own time. She even slipped a
little silver, into his vest pocket. All this Coupeau accepted as
a matter of course. He complained of all sorts of pains and aches
to gain a little longer period of indolence and at the end of six
months had begun to look upon himself as a confirmed invalid.</p>

<p>He almost daily dropped into a wineshop with a friend; it was
a place where he could chat a little, and where was the harm?
Besides, whoever heard of a glass of wine killing a man? But he
swore to himself that he would never touch anything but
wine&mdash;not a drop of brandy should pass his lips. Wine was
good for one&mdash;prolonged one's life, aided
digestion&mdash;but brandy was a very different matter.
Notwithstanding all these wise resolutions, it came to pass more
than once that he came in, after visiting a dozen different
cabarets, decidedly tipsy. On these occasions Gervaise locked her
doors and declared she was ill, to prevent the Goujets from
seeing her husband.</p>

<p>The poor woman was growing very sad. Every night and morning
she passed the shop for which she had so ardently longed. She
made her calculations over and over again until her brain was
dizzy. Two hundred and fifty francs for rent, one hundred and
fifty for moving and the apparatus she needed, one hundred francs
to keep things going until business began to come in. No, it
could not be done under five hundred francs.</p>

<p>She said nothing of this to anyone, deterred only by the fear
of seeming to regret the money she had spent for her husband
during his illness. She was pale and dispirited at the thought
that she must work five years at least before she could save that
much money.</p>

<p>One evening Gervaise was alone. Goujet entered, took a chair
in silence and looked at her as he smoked his pipe. He seemed to
be revolving something in his mind. Suddenly he took his pipe
from his mouth.</p>

<p>"Madame Gervaise," he said, "will you allow me to lend you the
money you require?"</p>

<p>She was kneeling at a drawer, laying some towels in a neat
pile. She started up, red with surprise. He had seen her standing
that very morning for a good ten minutes, looking at the shop, so
absorbed that she had not seen him pass.</p>

<p>She refused his offer, however. No, she could never borrow
money when she did not know how she could return it, and when he
insisted she replied:</p>

<p>"But your marriage? This is the money you have saved for
that."</p>

<p>"Don't worry on that account," he said with a heightened
color. "I shall not marry. It was an idea of my mother's, and I
prefer to lend you the money."</p>

<p>They looked away from each other. Their friendship had a
certain element of tenderness which each silently recognized.</p>

<p>Gervaise accepted finally and went with Goujet to see his
mother, whom he had informed of his intentions. They found her
somewhat sad, with her serene, pale face bent over her work. She
did not wish to thwart her son, but she no longer approved of the
plan, and she told Gervaise why. With kind frankness she pointed
out to her that Coupeau had fallen into evil habits and was
living on her labors and would in all probability continue to do
so. The truth was that Mme Goujet had not forgiven Coupeau for
refusing to read during all his long convalescence; this and many
other things had alienated her and her son from him, but they had
in no degree lost their interest in Gervaise.</p>

<p>Finally it was agreed she should have five hundred francs and
should return the money by paying each month twenty francs on
account.</p>

<p>"Well, well!" cried Coupeau as he heard of this financial
transaction. "We are in luck. There is no danger with us, to be
sure, but if he were dealing with knaves he might never see hide
or hair of his cash again!"</p>

<p>The next day the shop was taken, and Gervaise ran about with
such a light heart that there was a rumor that she had been cured
of her lameness by an operation.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2>CHAPTER V<br/>
AMBITIOUS DREAMS</h2>

<p>The Boche couple, on the first of April, moved also and took
the loge of the great house in the Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. Things
had turned out very nicely for Gervaise who, having always got on
very comfortably with the concierge in the house in Rue Neuve,
dreaded lest she should fall into the power of some tyrant who
would quarrel over every drop of water that was spilled and a
thousand other trifles like that. But with Mme Boche all would go
smoothly.</p>

<p>The day the lease was to be signed and Gervaise stood in her
new home her heart swelled with joy. She was finally to live in
that house like a small town, with its intersecting corridors
instead of streets.</p>

<p>She felt a strange timidity&mdash;a dread of
failure&mdash;when she found herself face to face with her
enterprise. The struggle for bread was a terrible and an
increasing one, and it seemed to her for a moment that she had
been guilty of a wild, foolhardy act, like throwing herself into
the jaws of a machine, for the planes in the cabinetmaker's shop
and the hammers in the locksmith's were dimly grasped by her as a
part of a great whole.</p>

<p>The water that ran past the door that day from the dyer's was
pale green. She smiled as she stepped over it, accepting this
color as a happy augury. She, with her husband, entered the loge,
where Mme Boche and the owner of the building, M. Marescot, were
talking on business.</p>

<p>Gervaise, with a thrill of pain, heard Boche advise the
landlord to turn out the dressmaker on the third floor who was
behindhand with her rent. She wondered if she would ever be
turned out and then wondered again at the attitude assumed by
these Boche people, who did not seem to have ever seen her
before. They had eyes and ears only for the landlord, who shook
hands with his new tenants but, when they spoke of repairs,
professed to be in such haste that morning that it would be
necessary to postpone the discussion. They reminded him of
certain verbal promises he had made, and finally he consented to
examine the premises.</p>

<p>The shop stood with its four bare walls and blackened ceiling.
The tenant who had been there had taken away his own counters and
cases. A furious discussion took place. M. Marescot said it was
for them to embellish the shop.</p>

<p>"That may be," said Gervaise gently, "but surely you cannot
call putting on a fresh paper, instead of this that hangs in
strips, an embellishment. Whitening the curbing, too, comes
under, the head of necessary repairs." She only required these
two things.</p>

<p>Finally Marescot, with a desperate air, plunged his hands deep
in his pockets, shrugged his shoulders and gave his consent to
the repairs on the ceiling and to the paper, on condition that
she would pay for half the paper, and then he hurried away.</p>

<p>When he had departed Boche clapped Coupeau on the shoulder.
"You may thank me for that!" he cried and then went on to say
that he was the real master of the house, that he settled the
whole business of the establishment, and it was a nod and look
from him that had influenced M. Marescot. That evening Gervaise,
considering themselves in debt to Boche, sent him some wine.</p>

<p>In four days the shop should have been ready for them, but the
repairs hung on for three weeks. At first they intended simply to
have the paint scrubbed, but it was so shabby and worn that
Gervaise repainted at her own expense. Coupeau went every
morning, not to work, but to inspect operations, and Boche
dropped the vest or pantaloons on which he was working and gave
the benefit of his advice, and the two men spent the whole day
smoking and spitting and arguing over each stroke of the brush.
Some days the painters did not appear at all; on others they came
and walked off in an hour's time, not to return again.</p>

<p>Poor Gervaise wrung her hands in despair. But finally, after
two days of energetic labor, the whole thing was done, and the
men walked off with their ladders, singing lustily.</p>

<p>Then came the moving, and finally Gervaise called herself
settled in her new home and was pleased as a child. As she came
up the street she could see her sign afar off:</p>

<p class="center">
CLEAR STARCHER<br/>
LACES AND EMBROIDERIES<br/>
DONE UP WITH ESPECIAL CARE</p>

<p>The twofirst words were painted in large yellow letters on a pale
blue ground.</p>

<p>In the recessed window shut in at the back by muslin curtains
lay men's shirts, delicate handkerchiefs and cuffs; all these
were on blue paper, and Gervaise was charmed. When she entered
the door all was blue there; the paper represented a golden
trellis and blue morning-glories. In the center was a huge table
draped with blue-bordered cretonne to hide the trestles.</p>

<p>Gervaise seated herself and looked round, happy in the
cleanliness of all about her. Her first glance, however, was
directed to her stove, a sort of furnace whereon ten irons could
be heated at once. It was a source of constant anxiety lest her
little apprentice should fill it too full of coal and so injure
it.</p>

<p>Behind the shop was her bedroom and her kitchen, from which a
door opened into the court. Nana's bed stood in a little room at
the right, and Etienne was compelled to share his with the
baskets of soiled clothes. It was all very well, except that the
place was very damp and that it was dark by three o'clock in the
afternoon in winter.</p>

<p>The new shop created a great excitement in the neighborhood.
Some people declared that the Coupeaus were on the road to ruin;
they had, in fact, spent the whole five hundred francs and were
penniless, contrary to their intentions. The morning that
Gervaise first took down her shutters she had only six francs in
the world, but she was not troubled, and at the end of a week she
told her husband after two hours of abstruse calculations that
they had taken in enough to cover their expenses.</p>

<p>The Lorilleuxs were in a state of rage, and one morning when
the apprentice was emptying, on the sly, a bowl of starch which
she had burned in making, just as Mme Lorilleux was passing, she
rushed in and accused her sister-in-law of insulting her. After
this all friendly relations were at an end.</p>

<p>"It all looks very strange to me," sniffed Mme Lorilleux. "I
can't tell where the money comes from, but I have my suspicions."
And she went on to intimate that Gervaise and Goujet were
altogether too intimate. This was the groundwork of many fables;
she said Wooden Legs was so mild and sweet that she had deceived
her to the extent that she had consented to become Nana's
godmother, which had been no small expense, but now things were
very different. If Gervaise were dying and asked her for a glass
of water she would not give it. She could not stand such people.
As to Nana, it was different; they would always receive her. The
child, of course, was not responsible for her mother's crimes.
Coupeau should take a more decided stand and not put up with his
wife's vile conduct.</p>

<p>Boche and his wife sat in judgment on the quarrel and gave as
their opinion that the Lorilleuxs were much to blame. They were
good tenants, of course. They paid regularly. "But," added Mme
Boche, "I never could abide jealousy. They are mean people and
were never known to offer a glass of wine to a friend."</p>

<p>Mother Coupeau visited her son and daughter successive days,
listened to the tales of each and said never a word in reply.</p>

<p>Gervaise lived a busy life and took no notice of all this
foolish gossip and strife. She greeted her friends with a smile
from the door of her shop, where she went for a breath of fresh
air. All the people in the neighborhood liked her and would have
called her a great beauty but for her lameness. She was
twenty-eight and had grown plump. She moved more slowly, and when
she took a chair to wait for her irons to heat she rose with
reluctance. She was growing fond of good living&mdash;that she
herself admitted&mdash;but she did not regard it as a fault. She
worked hard and had a right to good food. Why should she live on
potato parings? Sometimes she worked all night when she had a
great deal of work on hand.</p>

<p>She did the washing for the whole house and for some Parisian
ladies and had several apprentices, besides two laundresses. She
was making money hand over fist, and her good luck would have
turned a wiser head than her own. But hers was not turned; she
was gentle and sweet and hated no one except her sister-in-law.
She judged everybody kindly, particularly after she had eaten a
good breakfast. When people called her good she laughed. Why
should she not be good? She had seen all her dreams realized. She
remembered what she once said&mdash;that she wanted to work hard,
have plenty to eat, a home to herself, where she could bring up
her children, not be beaten and die in her bed! As to dying in
her bed, she added she wanted that still, but she would put it
off as long as possible, "if you please!" It was to Coupeau
himself that Gervaise was especially sweet. Never a cross or an
impatient word had he heard from her lips, and no one had ever
known her complain of him behind his back. He had finally resumed
his trade, and as the shop where he worked was at the other end
of Paris, she gave him every morning forty sous for his
breakfast, his wine and tobacco. Two days out of six, however,
Coupeau would meet a friend, drink up his forty sous and return
to breakfast. Once, indeed, he sent a note, saying that his
account at the cabaret exceeded his forty sous. He was in pledge,
as it were; would his wife send the money? She laughed and
shrugged her shoulders. Where was the harm in her husband's
amusing himself a little? A woman must give a man a long rope if
she wished to live in peace and comfort. It was not far from
words to blows&mdash;she knew that very well.</p>

<p>The hot weather had come. One afternoon in June the ten irons
were heating on the stove; the door was open into the street, but
not a breath of air came in.</p>

<p>"What a melting day!" said Gervaise, who was stooping over a
great bowl of starch. She had rolled up her sleeves and taken off
her sack and stood in her chemise and white skirt; the soft hair
in her neck was curling on her white throat. She dipped each cuff
in the starch, the fronts of the shirts and the whole of the
skirts. Then she rolled up the pieces tightly and placed them
neatly in a square basket after having sprinkled with clear water
all those portions which were not starched.</p>

<p>"This basket is for you, Madame Putois," she said, "and you
will have to hurry, for they dry so fast in this weather."</p>

<p>Mine Putois was a thin little woman who looked cool and
comfortable in her tightly buttoned dress. She had not taken her
cap off but stood at the table, moving her irons to and fro with
the regularity of an automaton. Suddenly she exclaimed:</p>

<p>"Put on your sack, Clémence; there are three men
looking in, and I don't like such things."</p>

<p>Clémence grumbled and growled. What did she care what
she liked? She could not and would not roast to suit anybody.</p>

<p>"Clémence, put on your sack," said Gervaise. "Madame
Putois is right&mdash;it is not proper."</p>

<p>Clémence muttered but obeyed and consoled herself by
giving the apprentice, who was ironing hose and towels by her
side, a little push. Gervaise had a cap belonging to Mme Boche in
her hand and was ironing the crown with a round ball, when a
tall, bony woman came in. She was a laundress.</p>

<p>"You have come too soon, Madame Bijard!" cried Gervaise. "I
said tonight. It is very inconvenient for me to attend to you at
this hour." At the same time, however, Gervaise amiably laid down
her work and went for the dirty clothes, which she piled up in
the back shop. It took the two women nearly an hour to sort them
and mark them with a stitch of colored cotton.</p>

<p>At this moment Coupeau entered.</p>

<p>"By Jove!" he said. "The sun beats down on one's head like a
hammer." He caught at the table to sustain himself; he had been
drinking; a spider web had caught in his dark hair, where many a
white thread was apparent. His under jaw dropped a little, and
his smile was good natured but silly.</p>

<p>Gervaise asked her husband if he had seen the Lorilleuxs in
rather a severe tone; when he said no she smiled at him without a
word of reproach.</p>

<p>"You had best go and lie down," she said pleasantly. "We are
very busy, and you are in our way. Did I say thirty-two
handkerchiefs, Madame Bijard? Here are two more; that makes
thirty-four."</p>

<p>But Coupeau was not sleepy, and he preferred to remain where
he was. Gervaise called Clémence and bade her to count the
linen while she made out the list. She glanced at each piece as
she wrote. She knew many of them by the color. That pillow slip
belonged to Mme Boche because it was stained with the pomade she
always used, and so on through the whole. Gervaise was seated
with these piles of soiled linen about her. Augustine, whose
great delight was to fill up the stove, had done so now, and it
was red hot. Coupeau leaned toward Gervaise.</p>

<p>"Kiss me," he said. "You are a good woman."</p>

<p>As he spoke he gave a sudden lurch and fell among the
skirts.</p>

<p>"Do take care," said Gervaise impatiently. "You will get them
all mixed again." And she gave him a little push with her foot,
whereat all the other women cried out.</p>

<p>"He is not like most men," said Mme Putois; "they generally
wish to beat you when they come in like this."</p>

<p>Gervaise already regretted her momentary vexation and assisted
her husband to his feet and then turned her cheek to him with a
smile, but he put his arm round her and kissed her neck. She
pushed him aside with a laugh.</p>

<p>"You ought to be ashamed!" she said but yielded to his
embrace, and the long kiss they exchanged before these people,
amid the sickening odor of the soiled linen and the alcoholic
fumes of his breath, was the first downward step in the slow
descent of their degradation.</p>

<p>Mme Bijard tied up the linen and staggered off under their
weight while Gervaise turned back to finish her cap. Alas! The
stove and the irons were alike red hot; she must wait a quarter
of an hour before she could touch the irons, and Gervaise covered
the fire with a couple of shovelfuls of cinders. She then hung a
sheet before the window to keep out the sun. Coupeau took a place
in the corner, refusing to budge an inch, and his wife and all
her assistants went to work on each side of the square table.
Each woman had at her right a flat brick on which to set her
iron. In the center of the table a dish of water with a rag and a
brush in it and also a bunch of tall lilies in a broken jar.</p>

<p>Mme Putois had attacked the basket of linen prepared by
Gervaise, and Augustine was ironing her towels, with her nose in
the air, deeply interested in a fly that was buzzing about. As to
Clémence, she was polishing off her thirty-fifth shirt; as
she boasted of this great feat Coupeau staggered toward her.</p>

<p>"Madame," she called, "please keep him away; he will bother
me, and I shall scorch my shirt."</p>

<p>"Let her be," said Gervaise without any especial energy. "We
are in a great hurry today!"</p>

<p>Well, that was not his fault; he did not mean to touch the
girl; he only wanted to see what she was about.</p>

<p>"Really," said his wife, looking up from her fluting iron, "I
think you had best go to bed."</p>

<p>He began to talk again.</p>

<p>"You need not make such a fuss, Clémence; it is only
because these women are here, and&mdash;"</p>

<p>But he could say no more; Gervaise quietly laid one hand on
his mouth and the other on his shoulder and pushed him toward his
room. He struggled a little and with a silly laugh asked if
Clémence was not coming too.</p>

<p>Gervaise undressed her husband and tucked him up in bed as if
he had been a child and then returned to her fluting irons in
time to still a grand dispute that was going on about an iron
that had not been properly cleaned.</p>

<p>In the profound silence that followed her appearance she could
hear her husband's thick voice:</p>

<p>"What a silly wife I've got! The idea of putting me to bed in
broad daylight!"</p>

<p>Suddenly he began to snore, and Gervaise uttered a sigh of
relief. She used her fluting iron for a minute and then said
quietly:</p>

<p>"There is no need of being offended by anything a man does
when he is in this state. He is not an accountable being. He did
not intend to insult you. Clémence, you know what a tipsy
man is&mdash;he respects neither father nor mother."</p>

<p>She uttered these words in an indifferent, matter-of-fact way,
not in the least disturbed that he had forgotten the respect due
to her and to her roof and really seeing no harm in his
conduct.</p>

<p>The work now went steadily on, and Gervaise calculated they
would be finished by eleven o'clock. The heat was intense; the
smell of charcoal deadened the air, while the branch of white
lilies slowly faded and filled the room with their sweetness.</p>

<p>The day after all this Coupeau had a frightful headache and
did not rise until late, too late to go to his work. About noon
he began to feel better, and toward evening was quite himself.
His wife gave him some silver and told him to go out and take the
air, which meant with him taking some wine.</p>

<p>One glass washed down another, but he came home as gay as a
lark and quite disgusted with the men he had seen who were
drinking themselves to death.</p>

<p>"Where is your lover?" he said to his wife as he entered the
shop. This was his favorite joke. "I never see him nowadays and
must hunt him up."</p>

<p>He meant Goujet, who came but rarely, lest the gossips in the
neighborhood should take it upon themselves to gabble. Once in
about ten days he made his appearance in the evening and
installed himself in a corner in the back shop with his pipe. He
rarely spoke but laughed at all Gervaise said.</p>

<p>On Saturday evenings the establishment was kept open half the
night. A lamp hung from the ceiling with the light thrown down by
a shade. The shutters were put up at the usual time, but as the
nights were very warm the door was left open, and as the hours
wore on the women pulled their jackets open a little more at the
throat, and he sat in his corner and looked on as if he were at a
theater.</p>

<p>The silence of the street was broken by a passing carriage.
Two o'clock struck&mdash;no longer a sound from outside. At
half-past two a man hurried past the door, carrying with him a
vision of flying arms, piles of white linen and a glow of yellow
light.</p>

<p>Goujet, wishing to save Etienne from Coupeau's rough
treatment, had taken him to the place where he was employed to
blow the bellows, with the prospect of becoming an apprentice as
soon as he was old enough, and Etienne thus became another tie
between the clearstarcher and the blacksmith.</p>

<p>All their little world laughed and told Gervaise that her
friend worshiped the very ground she trod upon. She colored and
looked like a girl of sixteen.</p>

<p>"Dear boy," she said to herself, "I know he loves me, but
never has he said or will he say a word of the kind to me!" And
she was proud of being loved in this way. When she was disturbed
about anything her first thought was to go to him. When by chance
they were left alone together they were never disturbed by
wondering if their friendship verged on love. There was no harm
in such affection.</p>

<p>Nana was now six years old and a most troublesome little
sprite. Her mother took her every morning to a school in the Rue
Polonçeau, to a certain Mlle Josse. Here she did all
manner of mischief. She put ashes into the teacher's snuffbox,
pinned the skirts of her companions together. Twice the young
lady was sent home in disgrace and then taken back again for the
sake of the six francs each month. As soon as school hours were
over Nana revenged herself for the hours of enforced quiet she
had passed by making the most frightful din in the courtyard and
the shop.</p>

<p>She found able allies in Pauline and Victor Boche. The whole
great house resounded with the most extraordinary
noises&mdash;the thumps of children falling downstairs, little
feet tearing up one staircase and down another and bursting out
on the sidewalk like a band of pilfering, impudent sparrows.</p>

<p>Mme Gaudron alone had nine&mdash;dirty, unwashed and unkempt,
their stockings hanging over their shoes and the slits in their
garments showing the white skin beneath. Another woman on the
fifth floor had seven, and they came out in twos and threes from
all the rooms. Nana reigned over this band, among which there
were some half grown and others mere infants. Her prime ministers
were Pauline and Victor; to them she delegated a little of her
authority while she played mamma, undressed the youngest only to
dress them again, cuffed them and punished them at her own sweet
will and with the most fantastic disposition. The band pranced
and waded through the gutter that ran from the dyehouse and
emerged with blue or green legs. Nana decorated herself and the
others with shavings from the cabinetmaker's, which they stole
from under the very noses of the workmen.</p>

<p>The courtyard belonged to all of these children, apparently,
and resounded with the clatter of their heels. Sometimes this
courtyard, however, was not enough for them, and they spread in
every direction to the infinite disgust of Mme Boche, who
grumbled all in vain. Boche declared that the children of the
poor were as plentiful as mushrooms on a dung heap, and his wife
threatened them with her broom.</p>

<p>One day there was a terrible scene. Nana had invented a
beautiful game. She had stolen a wooden shoe belonging to Mme
Boche; she bored a hole in it and put in a string, by which she
could draw it like a cart. Victor filled it with apple parings,
and they started forth in a procession, Nana drawing the shoe in
front, followed by the whole flock, little and big, an imp about
the height of a cigar box at the end. They all sang a melancholy
ditty full of "ahs" and "ohs." Nana declared this to be always
the custom at funerals.</p>

<p>"What on earth are they doing now?" murmured Mme Boche
suspiciously, and then she came to the door and peered out.</p>

<p>"Good heavens!" she cried. "It is my shoe they have got."</p>

<p>She slapped Nana, cuffed Pauline and shook Victor. Gervaise
was filling a bucket at the fountain, and when she saw Nana with
her nose bleeding she rushed toward the concierge and asked how
she dared strike her child.</p>

<p>The concierge replied that anyone who had a child like that
had best keep her under lock and key. The end of this was, of
course, a complete break between the old friends.</p>

<p>But, in fact, the quarrel had been growing for a month.
Gervaise, generous by nature and knowing the tastes of the Boche
people, was in the habit of making them constant
presents&mdash;oranges, a little hot soup, a cake or something of
the kind. One evening, knowing that the concierge would sell her
soul for a good salad, she took her the remains of a dish of
beets and chicory. The next day she was dumfounded at hearing
from Mlle Remanjon how Mme Boche had thrown the salad away,
saying that she was not yet reduced to eating the leavings of
other people! From that day forth Gervaise sent her nothing more.
The Boches had learned to look on her little offerings as their
right, and they now felt themselves to be robbed by the
Coupeaus.</p>

<p>It was not long before Gervaise realized she had made a
mistake, for when she was one day late with her October rent Mme
Boche complained to the proprietor, who came blustering to her
shop with his hat on. Of course, too, the Lorilleuxs extended the
right hand of fellowship at once to the Boche people.</p>

<p>There came a day, however, when Gervaise found it necessary to
call on the Lorilleuxs. It was on Mamma Coupeau's account, who
was sixty-seven years old, nearly blind and helpless. They must
all unite in doing something for her now. Gervaise thought it a
burning shame that a woman of her age, with three well-to-do
children, should be allowed for a moment to regard herself as
friendless and forsaken. And as her husband refused to speak to
his sister, Gervaise said she would.</p>

<p>She entered the room like a whirlwind, without knocking.
Everything was just as it was on that night when she had been
received by them in a fashion which she had never forgotten or
forgiven. "I have come," cried Gervaise, "and I dare say you wish
to know why, particularly as we are at daggers drawn. Well then,
I have come on Mamma Coupeau's account. I have come to ask if we
are to allow her to beg her bread from door to door&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Indeed!" said Mme Lorilleux with a sneer, and she turned
away.</p>

<p>But Lorilleux lifted his pale face.</p>

<p>"What do you mean?" he asked, and as he had understood
perfectly, he went on:</p>

<p>"What is this cry of poverty about? The old lady ate her
dinner with us yesterday. We do all we can for her, I am sure. We
have not the mines of Peru within our reach, but if she thinks
she is to run to and fro between our houses she is much mistaken.
I, for one, have no liking for spies." He then added as he took
up his microscope, "When the rest of you agree to give five
francs per month toward her support we will do the same."
Gervaise was calmer now; these people always chilled the very
marrow in her bones, and she went on to explain her views. Five
francs were not enough for each of the old lady's children to
pay. She could not live on fifteen francs per month.</p>

<p>"And why not?" cried Lorilleux. "She ought to do so. She can
see well enough to find the best bits in a dish before her, and
she can do something toward her own maintenance." If he had the
means to indulge such laziness he should not consider it his duty
to do so, he added.</p>

<p>Then Gervaise grew angry again. She looked at her
sister-in-law and saw her face set in vindictive firmness.</p>

<p>"Keep your money," she cried. "I will take care of your
mother. I found a starving cat in the street the other night and
took it in. I can take in your mother too. She shall want for
nothing. Good heavens, what people!"</p>

<p>Mme Lorilleux snatched up a saucepan.</p>

<p>"Clear out," she said hoarsely. "I will never give one
sou&mdash;no, not one sou&mdash;toward her keep. I understand
you! You will make my mother work for you like a slave and put my
five francs in your pocket! Not if I know it, madame! And if she
goes to live under your roof I will never see her again. Be off
with you, I say!"</p>

<p>"What a monster!" cried Gervaise as she shut the door with a
bang. On the very next day Mme Coupeau came to her. A large bed
was put in the room where Nana slept. The moving did not take
long, for the old lady had only this bed, a wardrobe, table and
two chairs. The table was sold and the chairs new-seated, and the
old lady the evening of her arrival washed the dishes and swept
up the room, glad to make herself useful. Mme Lerat had amused
herself by quarreling with her sister, to whom she had expressed
her admiration of the generosity evinced by Gervaise, and when
she saw that Mme Lorilleux was intensely exasperated she declared
she had never seen such eyes in anybody's head as those of the
clearstarcher. She really believed one might light paper at them.
This declaration naturally led to bitter words, and the sisters
parted, swearing they would never see each other again, and since
then Mme Lerat had spent most of her evenings at her
brother's.</p>

<p>Three years passed away. There were reconciliations and new
quarrels. Gervaise continued to be liked by her neighbors; she
paid her bills regularly and was a good customer. When she went
out she received cordial greetings on all sides, and she was more
fond of going out in these days than of yore. She liked to stand
at the corners and chat. She liked to loiter with her arms full
of bundles at a neighbor's window and hear a little gossip.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2>CHAPTER VI<br/>
GOUJET AT HIS FORGE</h2>

<p>One autumnal afternoon Gervaise, who had been to carry a
basket of clothes home to a customer who lived a good way off,
found herself in La Rue des Poissonnièrs just as it was
growing dark. It had rained in the morning, and the air was close
and warm. She was tired with her walk and felt a great desire for
something good to eat. Just then she lifted her eyes and, seeing
the name of the street, she took it into her head that she would
call on Goujet at his forge. But she would ask for Etienne, she
said to herself. She did not know the number, but she could find
it, she thought. She wandered along and stood bewildered, looking
toward Montmartre; all at once she heard the measured click of
hammers and concluded that she had stumbled on the place at last.
She did not know where the entrance to the building was, but she
caught a gleam of a red light in the distance; she walked toward
it and was met by a workman.</p>

<p>"Is it here, sir," she said timidly, "that my child&mdash;a
little boy, that is to say&mdash;works? A little boy by the name
of Etienne?"</p>

<p>"Etienne! Etienne!" repeated the man, swaying from side to
side. The wind brought from him to her an intolerable smell of
brandy, which caused Gervaise to draw back and say timidly:</p>

<p>"Is it here that Monsieur Goujet works?"</p>

<p>"Ah, Goujet, yes. If it is Goujet you wish to see go to the
left."</p>

<p>Gervaise obeyed his instructions and found herself in a large
room with the forge at the farther end. She spoke to the first
man she saw, when suddenly the whole room was one blaze of light.
The bellows had sent up leaping flames which lit every crevice
and corner of the dusty old building, and Gervaise recognized
Goujet before the forge with two other men. She went toward
him.</p>

<p>"Madame Gervaise!" he exclaimed in surprise, his face radiant
with joy, and then seeing his companions laugh and wink, he
pushed Etienne toward his mother. "You came to see your boy," he
said; "he does his duty like a hero.</p>

<p>"I am glad of it," she answered, "but what an awful place this
is to get at!"</p>

<p>And she described her journey, as she called it, and then
asked why no one seemed to know Etienne there.</p>

<p>"Because," said the blacksmith, "he is called Zou Zou here, as
his hair is cut short as a Zouave's."</p>

<p>This visit paid by Gervaise to the forge was only the first of
many others. She often went on Saturdays when she carried the
clean linen to Mme Goujet, who still resided in the same house as
before. The first year Gervaise had paid them twenty francs each
month, or rather the difference between the amount of their
washing, seven or eight francs, and the twenty which she agreed
upon. In this way she had paid half the money she had borrowed,
when one quarter day, not knowing to whom to turn, as she had not
been able to collect her bills punctually, she ran to the
Goujets' and borrowed the amount of her rent from them. Twice
since she had asked a similar favor, so that the amount of her
indebtedness now stood at four hundred and twenty-five
francs.</p>

<p>Now she no longer paid any cash but did their washing. It was
not that she worked less hard or that her business was falling
off. Quite the contrary; but money had a way of melting away in
her hands, and she was content nowadays if she could only make
both ends meet. What was the use of fussing, she thought? If she
could manage to live that was all that was necessary. She was
growing quite stout withal.</p>

<p>Mme Goujet was always kind to Gervaise, not because of any
fear of losing her money, but because she really loved her and
was afraid of her going wrong in some way.</p>

<p>The Saturday after the first visit paid by Gervaise to the
forge was also the first of the month. When she reached Mme
Goujet's her basket was so heavy that she panted for two good
minutes before she could speak. Every one knows how heavy shirts
and such things are.</p>

<p>"Have you brought everything?" asked Mme Goujet, who was very
exacting on this point. She insisted on every piece being
returned each week. Another thing she exacted was that the
clothes should be brought back always on the same day and
hour.</p>

<p>"Everything is here," answered Gervaise with a smile. "You
know I never leave anything behind."</p>

<p>"That is true," replied the elder woman. "You have many
faults, my dear, but not that one yet."</p>

<p>And while the laundress emptied her basket, laying the linen
on the bed, Mme Goujet paid her many compliments. She never
burned her clothes or ironed off the buttons or tore them, but
she did use a trifle too much bluing and made her shirts too
stiff.</p>

<p>"Feel," she said; "it is like pasteboard. My son never
complains, but I know he does not like them so."</p>

<p>"And they shall not be so again," said Gervaise. "No one ever
touches any of your things but myself, and I would do them over
ten times rather than see you dissatisfied."</p>

<p>She colored as she spoke.</p>

<p>"I have no intention of disparaging your work," answered Mme
Goujet. "I never saw anyone who did up laces and embroideries as
you do, and the fluting is simply perfect; the only trouble is a
little too much starch, my dear. Goujet does not care to look
like a fine gentleman."</p>

<p>She took up her book and drew a pen through the pieces as she
spoke. Everything was there. She brought out the bundle of soiled
clothes. Gervaise put them in her basket and hesitated.</p>

<p>"Madame Goujet," she said at last, "if you do not mind I
should like to have the money for this week's wash."</p>

<p>The account this month was larger than usual, ten francs and
over. Mme Goujet looked at her gravely.</p>

<p>"My child," she said slowly, "it shall be as you wish. I do
not refuse to give you the money if you desire it; only this is
not the way to get out of debt. I say this with no unkindness,
you understand. Only you must take care."</p>

<p>Gervaise, with downcast eyes, received the lesson meekly. She
needed the ten francs to complete the amount due the coal
merchant, she said.</p>

<p>But her friend heard this with a stern countenance and told
her she should reduce her expenses, but she did not add that she,
too, intended to do the same and that in future she should do her
washing herself, as she had formerly done, if she were to be out
of pocket thus.</p>

<p>When Gervaise was on the staircase her heart was light, for
she cared little for the reproof now that she had the ten francs
in her hand; she was becoming accustomed to paying one debt by
contracting another.</p>

<p>Midway on the stairs she met a tall woman coming up with a
fresh mackerel in her hand, and behold! it was Virginie, the girl
whom she had whipped in the lavatory. The two looked each other
full in the face. Gervaise instinctively closed her eyes, for she
thought the girl would slap her in the face with the mackerel.
But, no; Virginie gave a constrained smile. Then the laundress,
whose huge basket filled up the stairway and who did not choose
to be outdone in politeness, said:</p>

<p>"I beg your pardon&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Pray don't apologize," answered Virginie in a stately
fashion.</p>

<p>And they stood and talked for a few minutes with not the
smallest allusion, however, to the past.</p>

<p>Virginie, then about twenty-nine, was really a
magnificent-looking woman, head well set on her shoulders and a
long, oval face crowned by bands of glossy black hair. She told
her history in a few brief words. She was married. Had married
the previous spring a cabinetmaker who had given up his trade and
was hoping to obtain a position on the police force. She had just
been out to buy this mackerel for him.</p>

<p>"He adores them," she said, "and we women spoil our husbands,
I think. But come up. We are standing in a draft here."</p>

<p>When Gervaise had, in her turn, told her story and added that
Virginie was living in the very rooms where she had lived and
where her child was born, Virginie became still more urgent that
she should go up. "It is always pleasant to see a place where one
has been happy," she said. She herself had been living on the
other side of the water but had got tired of it and had moved
into these rooms only two weeks ago. She was not settled yet. Her
name was Mme Poisson.</p>

<p>"And mine," said Gervaise, "is Coupeau."</p>

<p>Gervaise was a little suspicious of all this courtesy. Might
not some terrible revenge be hidden under it all? And she
determined to be well on her guard. But as Virginie was so polite
just now she must be polite in her turn.</p>

<p>Poisson, the husband, was a man of thirty-five with a mustache
and imperial; he was seated at a table near the window, making
little boxes. His only tools were a penknife, a tiny saw and a
gluepot; he was executing the most wonderful and delicate
carving, however. He never sold his work but made presents of it
to his friends. It amused him while he was awaiting his
appointment.</p>

<p>Poisson rose and bowed politely to Gervaise, whom his wife
called an old friend. But he did not speak, his conversational
powers not being his strong point. He cast a plaintive glance at
the mackerel, however, from time to time. Gervaise looked around
the room and described her furniture and where it had stood. How
strange it was, after losing sight of each other so long, that
they should occupy the same apartment! Virginie entered into new
details. He had a small inheritance from his aunt, and she
herself sewed a little, made a dress now and then. At the end of
a half-hour Gervaise rose to depart; Virginie went to the head of
the stairs with her, and there both hesitated. Gervaise fancied
that Virginie wished to say something about Lantier and
Adèle, but they separated without touching on these
disagreeable topics.</p>

<p>This was the beginning of a great friendship. In another week
Virginie could not pass the shop without going in, and sometimes
she remained for two or three hours. At first Gervaise was very
uncomfortable; she thought every time Virginie opened her lips
that she would hear Lantier's name. Lantier was in her mind all
the time she was with Mme Poisson. It was a stupid thing to do,
after all, for what on earth did she care what had become of
Lantier or of Adèle? But she was, nonetheless, curious to
know something about them.</p>

<p>Winter had come, the fourth winter that the Coupeaus had spent
in La Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. This year December and January were
especially severe, and after New Year's the snow lay three weeks
in the street without melting. There was plenty of work for
Gervaise, and her shop was delightfully warm and singularly
quiet, for the carriages made no noise in the snow-covered
streets. The laughs and shouts of the children were almost the
only sounds; they had made a long slide and enjoyed themselves
hugely.</p>

<p>Gervaise took especial pleasure in her coffee at noon. Her
apprentices had no reason to complain, for it was hot and strong
and unadulterated by chicory. On the morning of Twelfth-day the
clock had struck twelve and then half past, and the coffee was
not ready. Gervaise was ironing some muslin curtains.
Clémence, with a frightful cold, was, as usual, at work on
a man's shirt. Mme Putois was ironing a skirt on a board, with a
cloth laid on the floor to prevent the skirt from being soiled.
Mamma Coupeau brought in the coffee, and as each one of the women
took a cup with a sigh of enjoyment the street door opened and
Virginie came in with a rush of cold air.</p>

<p>"Heavens!" she cried. "It is awful! My ears are cut off!"</p>

<p>"You have come just in time for a cup of hot coffee," said
Gervaise cordially.</p>

<p>"And I shall be only too glad to have it!" answered Virginie
with a shiver. She had been waiting at the grocer's, she said,
until she was chilled through and through. The heat of that room
was delicious, and then she stirred her coffee and said she liked
the damp, sweet smell of the freshly ironed linen. She and Mamma
Coupeau were the only ones who had chairs; the others sat on
wooden footstools, so low that they seemed to be on the floor.
Virginie suddenly stooped down to her hostess and said with a
smile:</p>

<p>"Do you remember that day at the lavatory?"</p>

<p>Gervaise colored; she could not answer. This was just what she
had been dreading. In a moment she felt sure she would hear
Lantier's name. She knew it was coming. Virginie drew nearer to
her. The apprentices lingered over their coffee and told each
other as they looked stupidly into the street what they would do
if they had an income of ten thousand francs. Virginie changed
her seat and took a footstool by the side of Gervaise, who felt
weak and cowardly and helpless to change the conversation or to
stave off what was coming. She breathlessly awaited the next
words, her heart big with an emotion which she would not
acknowledge to herself.</p>

<p>"I do not wish to give you any pain," said Virginie blandly.
"Twenty times the words have been on my lips, but I hesitated.
Pray don't think I bear you any malice."</p>

<p>She tipped up her cup and drank the last drop of her coffee.
Gervaise, with her heart in her mouth, waited in a dull agony of
suspense, asking herself if Virginie could have forgiven the
insult in the lavatory. There was a glitter in the woman's eyes
she did not like.</p>

<p>"You had an excuse," Virginie added as she placed her cup on
the table. "You had been abominably treated. I should have killed
someone." And then, dropping her little-affected tone, she
continued more rapidly:</p>

<p>"They were not happy, I assure you, not at all happy. They
lived in a dirty street, where the mud was up to their knees. I
went to breakfast with them two days after he left you and found
them in the height of a quarrel. You know that Adèle is a
wretch. She is my sister, to be sure, but she is a wretch all the
same. As to Lantier&mdash;well, you know him, so I need not
describe him. But for a yes or a no he would not hesitate to
thresh any woman that lives. Oh, they had a beautiful time! Their
quarrels were heard all over the neighborhood. One day the police
were sent for, they made such a hubbub."</p>

<p>She talked on and on, telling things that were enough to make
the hair stand up on one's head. Gervaise listened, as pale as
death, with a nervous trembling of her lips which might have been
taken for a smile. For seven years she had never heard Lantier's
name, and she would not have believed that she could have felt
any such overwhelming agitation. She could no longer be jealous
of Adèle, but she smiled grimly as she thought of the
blows she had received in her turn from Lantier, and she would
have listened for hours to all that Virginia had to tell, but she
did not ask a question for some time. Finally she said:</p>

<p>"And do they still live in that same place?"</p>

<p>"No indeed! But I have not told you all yet. They separated a
week ago."</p>

<p>"Separated!" exclaimed the clearstarcher.</p>

<p>"Who is separated?" asked Clémence, interrupting her
conversation with Mamma Coupeau.</p>

<p>"No one," said Virginie, "or at least no one whom you
know."</p>

<p>As she spoke she looked at Gervaise and seemed to take a
positive delight in disturbing her still more. She suddenly asked
her what she would do or say if Lantier should suddenly make his
appearance, for men were so strange; no one could ever tell what
they would do. Lantier was quite capable of returning to his old
love. Then Gervaise interrupted her and rose to the occasion. She
answered with grave dignity that she was married now and that if
Lantier should appear she would ask him to leave. There could
never be anything more between them, not even the most distant
acquaintance.</p>

<p>"I know very well," she said, "that Etienne belongs to him,
and if Lantier desires to see his son I shall place no obstacle
in his way. But as to myself, Madame Poisson, he shall never
touch my little finger again! It is finished."</p>

<p>As she uttered these last words she traced a cross in the air
to seal her oath, and as if desirous to put an end to the
conversation, she called out to her women:</p>

<p>"Do you think the ironing will be done today if you sit still?
To work! To work!"</p>

<p>The women did not move; they were lulled to apathy by the
heat, and Gervaise herself found it very difficult to resume her
labors. Her curtains had dried in all this time, and some coffee
had been spilled on them, and she must wash out the spots.</p>

<p>"Au revoir!" said Virginie. "I came out to buy a half pound of
cheese. Poisson will think I am frozen to death!"</p>

<p>The better part of the day was now gone, and it was this way
every day, for the shop was the refuge and haunt of all the
chilly people in the neighborhood. Gervaise liked the reputation
of having the most comfortable room in the <i>Quartier</i>, and
she held her receptions, as the Lorilleux and Boche clique said,
with a sniff of disdain. She would, in fact, have liked to bring
in the very poor whom she saw shivering outside. She became very
friendly toward a journeyman painter, an old man of seventy, who
lived in a loft of the house, where he shivered with cold and
hunger. He had lost his three sons in the Crimea, and for two
years his hand had been so cramped by rheumatism that he could
not hold a brush.</p>

<p>Whenever Gervaise saw Father Bru she called him in, made a
place for him near the stove and gave him some bread and cheese.
Father Bru, with his white beard and his face wrinkled like an
old apple, sat in silent content for hours at a time, enjoying
the warmth and the crackling of the coke.</p>

<p>"What are you thinking about?" Gervaise would say gaily.</p>

<p>"Of nothing&mdash;of all sorts of things," he would reply with
a dazed air.</p>

<p>The workwomen laughed and thought it a good joke to ask if he
were in love. He paid little heed to them but relapsed into
silent thought.</p>

<p>From this time Virginie often spoke to Gervaise of Lantier,
and one day she said she had just met him. But as the
clearstarcher made no reply Virginie then said no more. But on
the next day she returned to the subject and told her that he had
talked long and tenderly of her. Gervaise was much troubled by
these whispered conversations in the corner of her shop. The name
of Lantier made her faint and sick at heart. She believed herself
to be an honest woman. She meant, in every way, to do right and
to shun the wrong, because she felt that only in doing so could
she be happy. She did not think much of Coupeau because she was
conscious of no shortcomings toward him. But she thought of her
friend at the forge, and it seemed to her that this return of her
interest in Lantier, faint and undecided as it was, was an
infidelity to Goujet and to that tender friendship which had
become so very precious to her. Her heart was much troubled in
these days. She dwelt on that time when her first lover left her.
She imagined another day when, quitting Adèle, he might
return to her&mdash;with that old familiar trunk.</p>

<p>When she went into the street it was with a spasm of terror.
She fancied that every step behind her was Lantier's. She dared
not look around lest his hand should glide about her waist. He
might be watching for her at any time. He might come to her door
in the afternoon, and this idea brought a cold sweat to her
forehead, because he would certainly kiss her on her ear as he
had often teased her by doing in the years gone by. It was this
kiss she dreaded. Its dull reverberation deafened her to all
outside sounds, and she could hear only the beatings of her own
heart. When these terrors assailed her the forge was her only
asylum, from whence she returned smiling and serene, feeling that
Goujet, whose sonorous hammer had put all her bad dreams to
flight, would protect her always.</p>

<p>What a happy season this was after all! The clearstarcher
always carried a certain basket of clothes to her customer each
week, because it gave her a pretext for going into the forge, as
it was on her way. As soon as she turned the corner of the street
in which it was situated she felt as lighthearted as if she were
going to the country. The black charcoal dust in the road, the
black smoke rising slowly from the chimneys, interested and
pleased her as much as a mossy path through the woods. Afar off
the forge was red even at midday, and her heart danced in time
with the hammers. Goujet was expecting her and making more noise
than usual, that she might hear him at a great distance. She gave
Etienne a light tap on his cheek and sat quietly watching these
two&mdash;this man and boy, who were so dear to her&mdash;for an
hour without speaking. When the sparks touched her tender skin
she rather enjoyed the sensation. He, in his turn, was fully
aware of the happiness she felt in being there, and he reserved
the work which required skill for the time when she could look on
in wonder and admiration. It was an idyl that they were
unconsciously enacting all that spring, and when Gervaise
returned to her home it was in a spirit of sweet content.</p>

<p>By degrees her unreasonable fears of Lantier were conquered.
Coupeau was behaving very badly at this time, and one evening as
she passed the Assommoir she was certain she saw him drinking
with Mes-Bottes. She hurried on lest she should seem to be
watching him. But as she hastened she looked over her shoulder.
Yes, it was Coupeau who was tossing down a glass of liquor with
an air as if it were no new thing. He had lied to her then; he
did drink brandy. She was in utter despair, and all her old
horror of brandy returned. Wine she could have
forgiven&mdash;wine was good for a working man&mdash;liquor, on
the contrary, was his ruin and took from him all desire for the
food that nourished and gave him strength for his daily toil. Why
did not the government interfere and prevent the manufacture of
such pernicious things?</p>

<p>When she reached her home she found the whole house in
confusion. Her employees had left their work and were in the
courtyard. She asked what the matter was.</p>

<p>"It is Father Bijard beating his wife; he is as drunk as a
fool, and he drove her up the stairs to her room, where he is
murdering her. Just listen!"</p>

<p>Gervaise flew up the stairs. She was very fond of Mme Bijard,
who was her laundress and whose courage and industry she greatly
admired. On the sixth floor a little crowd was assembled. Mme
Boche stood at an open door.</p>

<p>"Have done!" she cried. "Have done, or the police will be
summoned."</p>

<p>No one dared enter the room, because Bijard was well known to
be like a madman when he was tipsy. He was rarely thoroughly
sober, and on the occasional days when he condescended to work he
always had a bottle of brandy at his side. He rarely ate
anything, and if a match had been touched to his mouth he would
have taken fire like a torch.</p>

<p>"Would you let her be killed?" exclaimed Gervaise, trembling
from head to foot, and she entered the attic room, which was very
clean and very bare, for the man had sold the very sheets off the
bed to satisfy his mad passion for drink. In this terrible
struggle for life the table had been thrown over, and the two
chairs also. On the floor lay the poor woman with her skirts
drenched as she had come from the washtub, her hair streaming
over her bloody face, uttering low groans at each kick the brute
gave her.</p>

<p>The neighbors whispered to each other that she had refused to
give him the money she had earned that day. Boche called up the
staircase to his wife:</p>

<p>"Come down, I say; let him kill her if he will. It will only
make one fool the less in the world!"</p>

<p>Father Bru followed Gervaise into the room, and the two
expostulated with the madman. But he turned toward them, pale and
threatening; a white foam glistened on his lips, and in his faded
eyes there was a murderous expression. He grasped Father Bru by
the shoulder and threw him over the table and shook Gervaise
until her teeth chattered and then returned to his wife, who lay
motionless, with her mouth wide open and her eyes closed; and
during this frightful scene little Lalie, four years old, was in
the corner, looking on at the murder of her mother. The child's
arms were round her sister Henriette, a baby who had just been
weaned. She stood with a sad, solemn face and serious, melancholy
eyes but shed no tears.</p>

<p>When Bijard slipped and fell Gervaise and Father Bru helped
the poor creature to her feet, who then burst into sobs. Lalie
went to her side, but she did not cry, for the child was already
habituated to such scenes. And as Gervaise went down the stairs
she was haunted by the strange look of resignation and courage in
Lalie's eyes; it was an expression belonging to maturity and
experience rather than to childhood.</p>

<p>"Your husband is on the other side of the street," said
Clémence as soon as she saw Gervaise; "he is as tipsy as
possible!"</p>

<p>Coupeau reeled in, breaking a square of glass with his
shoulder as he missed the doorway. He was not tipsy but drunk,
with his teeth set firmly together and a pinched expression about
the nose. And Gervaise instantly knew that it was the liquor of
the Assommoir which had vitiated his blood. She tried to smile
and coaxed him to go to bed. But he shook her off and as he
passed her gave her a blow.</p>

<p>He was just like the other&mdash;the beast upstairs who was
now snoring, tired out by beating his wife. She was chilled to
the heart and desperate. Were all men alike? She thought of
Lantier and of her husband and wondered if there was no happiness
in the world.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2>CHAPTER VII<br/>
A BIRTHDAY FÊTE</h2>

<p>The nineteenth of June was the clearstarcher's birthday. There
was always an excuse for a fete in the Coupeau mansion; saints
were invented to serve as a pretext for idleness and festivities.
Virginie highly commended Gervaise for living luxuriously. What
was the use of her husband drinking up everything? Why should she
save for her husband to spend at all the wineshops in the
neighborhood? And Gervaise accepted this excuse. She was growing
very indolent and much stouter, while her lameness had
perceptibly increased.</p>

<p>For a whole month they discussed the preparation for this
fete; they talked over dishes and licked their lips. They must
have something out of the common way. Gervaise was much troubled
as to whom she should invite. She wanted exactly twelve at table,
not one more or one less. She, her husband, her mother-in-law and
Mme Lerat were four. The Goujets and Poissons were four more. At
first she thought she would not ask her two women, Mme Putois and
Clémence, lest it should make them too familiar, but as
the entertainment was constantly under discussion before them she
ended by inviting them too. Thus there were ten; she must have
two more. She decided on a reconciliation with the Lorilleuxs,
who had extended the olive branch several times lately. Family
quarrels were bad things, she said. When the Boche people heard
of this they showed several little courtesies to Gervaise, who
felt obliged to urge them to come also. This made fourteen
without counting the children. She had never had a dinner like
this, and she was both triumphant and terrified.</p>

<p>The nineteenth fell on a Monday, and Gervaise thought it very
fortunate, as she could begin her cooking on Sunday afternoon. On
Saturday, while the women hurried through their work, there was
an endless discussion as to what the dishes should be. In the
last three weeks only one thing had been definitely decided
upon&mdash;a roast goose stuffed with onions. The goose had been
purchased, and Mme Coupeau brought it in that Mme Putois might
guess its weight. The thing looked enormous, and the fat seemed
to burst from its yellow skin.</p>

<p>"Soup before that, of course," said Gervaise, "and we must
have another dish."</p>

<p>Clémence proposed rabbits, but Gervaise wanted
something more distinguished. Mme Putois suggested a
<i>blanquette du veau</i>.</p>

<p>That was a new idea. Veal was always good too. Then Mme
Coupeau made an allusion to fish, which no one seconded.
Evidently fish was not in favor. Gervaise proposed a sparerib of
pork and potatoes, which brightened all their faces, just as
Virginie came in like a whirlwind.</p>

<p>"You are just in season. Mamma Coupeau, show her the goose,"
cried Gervaise.</p>

<p>Virginie admired it, guessed the weight and laid it down on
the ironing table between an embroidered skirt and a pile of
shirts. She was evidently thinking of something else. She soon
led Gervaise into the back shop.</p>

<p>"I have come to warn you," she said quickly. "I just met
Lantier at the very end of this street, and I am sure he followed
me, and I naturally felt alarmed on your account, my dear."</p>

<p>Gervaise turned very pale. What did he want of her? And why on
earth should he worry her now amid all the busy preparations for
the fete? It seemed as if she never in her life had set her heart
on anything that she was not disappointed. Why was it that she
could never have a minute's peace?</p>

<p>But Virginie declared that she would look out for her. If
Lantier followed her she would certainly give him over to the
police. Her husband had been in office now for a month, and
Virginie was very dictatorial and aggressive and talked of
arresting everyone who displeased her. She raised her voice as
she spoke, but Gervaise implored her to be cautious, because her
women could hear every word. They went back to the front shop,
and she was the first to speak.</p>

<p>"We have said nothing of vegetables," she said quietly.</p>

<p>"Peas, with a bit of pork," said Virginie authoritatively.</p>

<p>This was agreed upon with enthusiasm.</p>

<p>The next day at three Mamma Coupeau lighted the two furnaces
belonging to the house and a third one borrowed from Mme Boche,
and at half-past three the soup was gently simmering in a large
pot lent by the restaurant at the corner. They had decided to
cook the veal and the pork the day previous, as those two dishes
could be warmed up so well, and would leave for Monday only the
goose to roast and the vegetables. The back shop was ruddy with
the glow from the three furnaces&mdash;sauces were bubbling with
a strong smell of browned flour. Mamma Coupeau and Gervaise, each
with large white aprons, were washing celery and running hither
and thither with pepper and salt or hurriedly turning the veal
with flat wooden sticks made for the purpose. They had told
Coupeau pleasantly that his room was better than his company, but
they had plenty of people there that afternoon. The smell of the
cooking found its way out into the street and up through the
house, and the neighbors, impelled by curiosity, came down on all
sorts of pretexts, merely to discover what was going on.</p>

<p>About five Virginie made her appearance. She had seen Lantier
twice. Indeed, it was impossible nowadays to enter the street and
not see him. Mme Boche, too, had spoken to him on the corner
below. Then Gervaise, who was on the point of going for a sou's
worth of fried onions to season her soup, shuddered from head to
foot and said she would not go out ever again. The concierge and
Virginie added to her terror by a succession of stories of men
who lay in wait for women, with knives and pistols hidden in
their coats.</p>

<p>Such things were read every day in the papers! When such a
scamp as Lantier found a woman happy and comfortable, he was
always wretched until he had made her so too. Virginie said she
would go for the onions. "Women," she observed sententiously,
"should protect each other, as well as serve each other, in such
matters." When she returned she reported that Lantier was no
longer there. The conversation around the stove that evening
never once drifted from that subject. Mme Boche said that she,
under similar circumstances, should tell her husband, but
Gervaise was horror-struck at this and begged her never to
breathe one single word about it. Besides, she fancied her
husband had caught a glimpse of Lantier from something he had
muttered amid a volley of oaths two or three nights before. She
was filled with dread lest these two men should meet. She knew
Coupeau so well that she had long since discovered that he was
still jealous of Lantier, and while the four women discussed the
imminent danger of a terrible tragedy the sauces and the meats
hissed and simmered on the furnaces, and they ended by each
taking a cup of soup to discover what improvement was
desirable.</p>

<p>Monday arrived. Now that Gervaise had invited fourteen to
dine, she began to be afraid there would not be room and finally
decided to lay the table in the shop. She was uncertain how to
place the table, which was the ironing table on trestles. In the
midst of the hubbub and confusion a customer arrived and made a
scene because her linen had not come home on the Friday previous.
She insisted on having every piece that moment&mdash;clean or
dirty, ironed or rough-dry.</p>

<p>Then Gervaise, to excuse herself, told a lie with wonderful
sang-froid. It was not her fault. She was cleaning her rooms. Her
women would be at work again the next day, and she got rid of her
customer, who went away soothed by the promise that her wash
would be sent to her early the following morning.</p>

<p>But Gervaise lost her temper, which was not a common thing
with her, and as soon as the woman's back was turned called her
by an opprobrious name and declared that if she did as people
wished she could not take time to eat and vowed she would not
have an iron heated that day or the next in her establishment.
No! Not if the Grand Turk himself should come and entreat her on
his knees to do up a collar for him. She meant to enjoy herself a
little occasionally!</p>

<p>The entire morning was consumed in making purchases. Three
times did Gervaise go out and come in, laden with bundles. But
when she went the fourth time for the wine she discovered that
she had not money enough. She could have got the wine on credit,
but she could not be without money in the house, for a thousand
little unexpected expenses arise at such times, and she and her
mother-in-law racked their brains to know what they should do to
get the twenty francs they considered necessary. Mme Coupeau, who
had once been housekeeper for an actress, was the first to speak
of the Mont-de-Piété. Gervaise laughed gaily.</p>

<p>"To be sure! Why had she not thought of it before?"</p>

<p>She folded her black silk dress and pinned it in a napkin;
then she hid the bundle under her mother-in-law's apron and bade
her keep it very flat, lest the neighbors, who were so terribly
inquisitive, should find it out, and then she watched the old
woman from the door to see that no one followed her.</p>

<p>But when Mamma Coupeau had gone a few steps Gervaise called
her back into the shop and, taking her wedding ring from her
finger, said:</p>

<p>"Take this, too, for we shall need all the money we can get
today."</p>

<p>And when the old woman came back with twenty-five francs she
clapped her hands with joy. She ordered six bottles of wine with
seals to drink with the roast. The Lorilleuxs would be green with
envy. For a fortnight this had been her idea, to crush the
Lorilleuxs, who were never known to ask a friend to their table;
who, on the contrary, locked their doors when they had anything
special to eat. Gervaise wanted to give her a lesson and would
have liked to offer the strangers who passed her door a seat at
her table. Money was a very good thing and mighty pretty to look
at, but it was good for nothing but to spend.</p>

<p>Mamma Coupeau and Gervaise began to lay their table at three
o'clock. They had hung curtains before the windows, but as the
day was warm the door into the street was open. The two women did
not put on a plate or salt spoon without the avowed intention of
worrying the Lorilleuxs. They had given them seats where the
table could be seen to the best advantage, and they placed before
them the real china plates.</p>

<p>"No, no, Mamma," cried Gervaise, "not those napkins. I have
two which are real damask."</p>

<p>"Well! Well! I declare!" murmured the old woman. "What will
they say to all this?"</p>

<p>And they smiled as they stood at opposite sides of this long
table with its glossy white cloth and its places for fourteen
carefully laid. They worshiped there as if it had been a chapel
erected in the middle of the shop.</p>

<p>"How false they are!" said Gervaise. "Do you remember how she
declared she had lost a piece of one of the chains when she was
carrying them home? That was only to get out of giving you your
five francs."</p>

<p>"Which I have never had from them but just twice," muttered
the old woman.</p>

<p>"I will wager that next month they will invent another tale.
That is one reason why they lock their doors when they have a
rabbit. They think people might say, 'If you can eat rabbits you
can give five francs to your mother!' How mean they are! What do
they think would have become of you if I had not asked you to
come and live here?"</p>

<p>Her mother-in-law shook her head. She was rather severe in her
judgment of the Lorilleuxs that day, inasmuch as she was
influenced by the gorgeous entertainment given by the Coupeaus.
She liked the excitement; she liked to cook. She generally lived
pretty well with Gervaise, but on those days which occur in all
households, when the dinner was scanty and unsatisfactory, she
called herself a most unhappy woman, left to the mercy of a
daughter-in-law. In the depths of her heart she still loved Mme
Lorilleux; she was her eldest child.</p>

<p>"You certainly would have weighed some pounds less with her,"
continued Gervaise. "No coffee, no tobacco, no sweets. And do you
imagine that they would have put two mattresses on your bed?"</p>

<p>"No indeed," answered the old woman, "but I wish to see them
when they first come in&mdash;just to see how they look!"</p>

<p>At four o'clock the goose was roasted, and Augustine, seated
on a little footstool, was given a long-handled spoon and bidden
to watch and baste it every few minutes. Gervaise was busy with
the peas, and Mamma Coupeau, with her head a little confused, was
waiting until it was time to heat the veal and the pork. At five
the guests began to arrive. Clémence and Mme Putois,
gorgeous to behold in their Sunday rig, were the first.</p>

<p>Clémence wore a blue dress and had some geraniums in
her hand; Madame was in black, with a bunch of heliotrope.
Gervaise, whose hands were covered with flour, put them behind
her back, came forward and kissed them cordially.</p>

<p>After them came Virginie in scarf and hat, though she had only
to cross the street; she wore a printed muslin and was as
imposing as any lady in the land. She brought a pot of red
carnations and put both her arms around her friend and kissed
her.</p>

<p>The offering brought by Boche was a pot of pansies, and his
wife's was mignonette; Mme Lerat's, a lemon verbena. The three
furnaces filled the room with an overpowering heat, and the
frying potatoes drowned their voices. Gervaise was very sweet and
smiling, thanking everyone for the flowers, at the same time
making the dressing for the salad. The perfume of the flowers was
perceived above all the smell of cooking.</p>

<p>"Can't I help you?" said Virginie. "It is a shame to have you
work so hard for three days on all these things that we shall
gobble up in no time."</p>

<p>"No indeed," answered Gervaise; "I am nearly through."</p>

<p>The ladies covered the bed with their shawls and bonnets and
then went into the shop that they might be out of the way and
talked through the open door with much noise and loud
laughing.</p>

<p>At this moment Goujet appeared and stood timidly on the
threshold with a tall white rosebush in his arms whose flowers
brushed against his yellow beard. Gervaise ran toward him with
her cheeks reddened by her furnaces. She took the plant,
crying:</p>

<p>"How beautiful!"</p>

<p>He dared not kiss her, and she was compelled to offer her
cheek to him, and both were embarrassed. He told her in a
confused way that his mother was ill with sciatica and could not
come. Gervaise was greatly disappointed, but she had no time to
say much just then: she was beginning to be anxious about
Coupeau&mdash;he ought to be in&mdash;then, too, where were the
Lorilleuxs? She called Mme Lerat, who had arranged the
reconciliation, and bade her go and see.</p>

<p>Mme Lerat put on her hat and shawl with excessive care and
departed. A solemn hush of expectation pervaded the room.</p>

<p>Mme Lerat presently reappeared. She had come round by the
street to give a more ceremonious aspect to the affair. She held
the door open while Mme Lorilleux, in a silk dress, stood on the
threshold. All the guests rose, and Gervaise went forward to meet
her sister and kissed her, as had been agreed upon.</p>

<p>"Come in! Come in!" she said. "We are friends again."</p>

<p>"And I hope for always," answered her sister-in-law
severely.</p>

<p>After she was ushered in the same program had to be followed
out with her husband. Neither of the two brought any flowers.
They had refused to do so, saying that it would look as if they
were bowing down to Wooden Legs. Gervaise summoned Augustine and
bade her bring some wine and then filled glasses for all the
party, and each drank the health of the family.</p>

<p>"It is a good thing before soup," muttered Boche.</p>

<p>Mamma Coupeau drew Gervaise into the next room.</p>

<p>"Did you see her?" she said eagerly. "I was watching her, and
when she saw the table her face was as long as my arm, and now
she is gnawing her lips; she is so mad!"</p>

<p>It was true the Lorilleuxs could not stand that table with its
white linen, its shining glass and square piece of bread at each
place. It was like a restaurant on the boulevard, and Mme
Lorilleux felt of the cloth stealthily to ascertain if it were
new.</p>

<p>"We are all ready," cried Gervaise, reappearing and pulling
down her sleeves over her white arms.</p>

<p>"Where can Coupeau be?" she continued.</p>

<p>"He is always late! He always forgets!" muttered his sister.
Gervaise was in despair. Everything would be spoiled. She
proposed that someone should go out and look for him. Goujet
offered to go, and she said she would accompany him. Virginie
followed, all three bareheaded. Everyone looked at them, so gay
and fresh on a week-day. Virginie in her pink muslin and Gervaise
in a white cambric with blue spots and a gray silk handkerchief
knotted round her throat. They went to one wineshop after
another, but no Coupeau. Suddenly, as they went toward the
boulevard, his wife uttered an exclamation.</p>

<p>"What is the matter?" asked Goujet.</p>

<p>The clearstarcher was very pale and so much agitated that she
could hardly stand. Virginie knew at once and, leaning over her,
looked in at the restaurant and saw Lantier quietly dining.</p>

<p>"I turned my foot," said Gervaise when she could speak.
Finally at the Assommoir they found Coupeau and Poisson. They
were standing in the center of an excited crowd. Coupeau, in a
gray blouse, was quarreling with someone, and Poisson, who was
not on duty that day, was listening quietly, his red mustache and
imperial giving him, however, quite a formidable aspect.</p>

<p>Goujet left the women outside and, going in, placed his hand
on Coupeau's shoulder, who, when he saw his wife and Virginie,
fell into a great rage.</p>

<p>No, he would not move! He would not stand being followed about
by women in this way! They might go home and eat their rubbishy
dinner themselves! He did not want any of it!</p>

<p>To appease him Goujet was compelled to drink with him, and
finally he persuaded him to go with him. But when he was outside
he said to Gervaise:</p>

<p>"I am not going home; you need not think it!"</p>

<p>She did not reply. She was trembling from head to foot. She
had been speaking of Lantier to Virginie and begged the other to
go on in front, while the two women walked on either side of
Coupeau to prevent him from seeing Lantier as they passed the
open window where he sat eating his dinner.</p>

<p>But Coupeau knew that Lantier was there, for he said:</p>

<p>"There's a fellow I know, and you know him too!"</p>

<p>He then went on to accuse her, with many a coarse word, of
coming out to look, not for him, but for her old lover, and then
all at once he poured out a torrent of abuse upon Lantier, who,
however, never looked up or appeared to hear it.</p>

<p>Virginie at last coaxed Coupeau on, whose rage disappeared
when they turned the corner of the street. They returned to the
shop, however, in a very different mood from the one in which
they had left it and found the guests, with very long faces,
awaiting them.</p>

<p>Coupeau shook hands with the ladies in succession, with
difficulty keeping his feet as he did so, and Gervaise, in a
choked voice, begged them to take their seats. But suddenly she
perceived that Mme Goujet not having come, there was an empty
seat next to Mme Lorilleux.</p>

<p>"We are thirteen," she said, much disturbed, as she fancied
this to be an additional proof of the misfortune which for some
time she had felt to be hanging over them.</p>

<p>The ladies, who were seated, started up. Mme Putois offered to
leave because, she said, no one should fly in the face of
Destiny; besides, she was not hungry. As to Boche, he laughed,
and said it was all nonsense.</p>

<p>"Wait!" cried Gervaise. "I will arrange it."</p>

<p>And rushing out on the sidewalk, she called to Father Bru, who
was crossing the street, and the old man followed her into the
room.</p>

<p>"Sit there," said the clearstarcher. "You are willing to dine
with us, are you not?"</p>

<p>He nodded acquiescence.</p>

<p>"He will do as well as another," she continued in a low voice.
"He rarely, if ever, had as much as he wanted to eat, and it will
be a pleasure to us to see him enjoy his dinner."</p>

<p>Goujet's eyes were damp, so much was he touched by the kind
way in which Gervaise spoke, and the others felt that it would
bring them good luck. Mme Lorilleux was the only one who seemed
displeased. She drew her skirts away and looked down with
disgusted mien upon the patched blouse at her side.</p>

<p>Gervaise served the soup, and the guests were just lifting
their spoons to their mouths when Virginie noticed that Coupeau
had disappeared. He had probably returned to the more congenial
society at the Assommoir, and someone said he might stay in the
street; certainly no one would go after him, but just as they had
swallowed the soup Coupeau appeared bearing two pots, one under
each arm&mdash;a balsam and a wallflower. All the guests clapped
their hands. He placed them on either side of Gervaise and,
kissing her, he said:</p>

<p>"I forgot you, my dear, but all the same I loved you very
much."</p>

<p>"Monsieur Coupeau is very amiable tonight; he has taken just
enough to make him good natured," whispered one of the
guests.</p>

<p>This little act on the part of the host brought back the
smiles to the faces around the table. The wine began to
circulate, and the voices of the children were heard in the next
room. Etienne, Nana, Pauline and little Victor Fauconnier were
installed at a small table and were told to be very good.</p>

<p>When the <i>blanquette du veau</i> was served the guests were
moved to enthusiasm. It was now half-past seven. The door of the
shop was shut to keep out inquisitive eyes, and curtains hung
before the windows. The veal was a great success; the sauce was
delicious and the mushrooms extraordinarily good. Then came the
sparerib of pork. Of course all these good things demanded a
large amount of wine.</p>

<p>In the next room at the children's table Nana was playing the
mistress of the household. She was seated at the head of the
table and for a while was quite dignified, but her natural
gluttony made her forget her good manners when she saw Augustine
stealing the peas from the plate, and she slapped the girl
vehemently.</p>

<p>"Take care, mademoiselle," said Augustine sulkily, "or I will
tell your mother that I heard you ask Victor to kiss you."</p>

<p>Now was the time for the goose. Two lamps were placed on the
table, one at each end, and the disorder was very apparent: the
cloth was stained and spotted. Gervaise left the table to
reappear presently, bearing the goose in triumph. Lorilleux and
his wife exchanged a look of dismay.</p>

<p>"Who will cut it?" said the clearstarcher. "No, not I. It is
too big for me to manage!"</p>

<p>Coupeau said he could do it. After all, it was a simple thing
enough&mdash;he should just tear it to pieces.</p>

<p>There was a cry of dismay.</p>

<p>Mme Lerat had an inspiration.</p>

<p>"Monsieur Poisson is the man," she said; "of course he
understands the use of arms." And she handed the sergeant the
carving knife. Poisson made a stiff inclination of his whole body
and drew the dish toward him and went to work in a slow,
methodical fashion. As he thrust his knife into the breast
Lorilleux was seized with momentary patriotism, and he
exclaimed:</p>

<p>"If it were only a Cossack!"</p>

<p>At last the goose was carved and distributed, and the whole
party ate as if they were just beginning their dinner. Presently
there was a grand outcry about the heat, and Coupeau opened the
door into the street. Gervaise devoured large slices of the
breast, hardly speaking, but a little ashamed of her own gluttony
in the presence of Goujet. She never forgot old Bru, however, and
gave him the choicest morsels, which he swallowed unconsciously,
his palate having long since lost the power of distinguishing
flavors. Mamma Coupeau picked a bone with her two remaining
teeth.</p>

<p>And the wine! Good heavens, how much they drank! A pile of
empty bottles stood in the corner. When Mme Putois asked for
water Coupeau himself removed the carafes from the table. No one
should drink water, he declared, in his house&mdash;did she want
to swallow frogs and live things?&mdash;and he filled up all the
glasses. Hypocrites might talk as much as they pleased; the juice
of the grape was a mighty good thing and a famous invention!</p>

<p>The guests all laughed and approved; working people must have
their wine, they said, and Father Noah had planted the vine for
them especially. Wine gave courage and strength for work; and if
it chanced that a man sometimes took a drop too much, in the end
it did him no harm, and life looked brighter to him for a time.
Goujet himself, who was usually so prudent and abstemious, was
becoming a little excited. Boche was growing red, and the
Lorilleux pair very pale, while Poisson assumed a solemn and
severe aspect. The men were all more or less tipsy, and the
ladies&mdash;well, the less we say of the ladies, the better.</p>

<p>Suddenly Gervaise remembered the six bottles of sealed wine
she had omitted to serve with the goose as she had intended. She
produced them amid much applause. The glasses were filled anew,
and Poisson rose and proposed the health of their hostess.</p>

<p>"And fifty more birthdays!" cried Virginie.</p>

<p>"No, no," answered Gervaise with a smile that had a touch of
sadness in it. "I do not care to live to be very old. There comes
a time when one is glad to go!"</p>

<p>A little crowd had collected outside and smiled at the scene,
and the smell of the goose pervaded the whole street. The clerks
in the grocery opposite licked their lips and said it was good
and curiously estimated the amount of wine that had been
consumed.</p>

<p>None of the guests were annoyed by being the subjects of
observation, although they were fully aware of it and, in fact,
rather enjoyed it. Coupeau, catching sight of a familiar face,
held up a bottle, which, being accepted with a nod, he sent it
out with a glass. This established a sort of fraternity with the
street.</p>

<p>In the next room the children were unmanageable. They had
taken possession of a saucepan and were drumming on it with
spoons. Mamma Coupeau and Father Bru were talking earnestly. The
old man was speaking of his two sons who had died in the Crimea.
Ah, had they but lived, he would have had bread to eat in his old
age!</p>

<p>Mme Coupeau, whose tongue was a little thick, said:</p>

<p>"Yes, but one has a good deal of unhappiness with children.
Many an hour have I wept on account of mine."</p>

<p>Father Bru hardly heard what she said but talked on, half to
himself.</p>

<p>"I can't get any work to do. I am too old. When I ask for any
people laugh and ask if it was I who blacked Henri Quatre's
boots. Last year I earned thirty sous by painting a bridge. I had
to lie on my back all the time, close to the water, and since
then I have coughed incessantly." He looked down at his poor
stiff hands and added, "I know I am good for nothing. I wish I
was by the side of my boys. It is a great pity that one can't
kill one's self when one begins to grow old."</p>

<p>"Really," said Lorilleux, "I cannot see why the government
does not do something for people in your condition. Men who are
disabled&mdash;"</p>

<p>"But workmen are not soldiers," interrupted Poisson, who
considered it his duty to espouse the cause of the government.
"It is foolish to expect them to do impossibilities."</p>

<p>The dessert was served. In the center was a pyramid of
spongecake in the form of a temple with melonlike sides, and on
the top was an artificial rose with a butterfly of silver paper
hovering over it, held by a gilt wire. Two drops of gum in the
heart of the rose stood for dew. On the left was a deep plate
with a bit of cheese, and on the other side of the pyramid was a
dish of strawberries, which had been sugared and carefully
crushed.</p>

<p>In the salad dish there were a few leaves of lettuce left.</p>

<p>"Madame Boche," said Gervaise courteously, "pray eat these. I
know how fond you are of salad."</p>

<p>The concierge shook her head. There were limits even to her
capacities, and she looked at the lettuce with regret.
Clémence told how she had once eaten three quarts of water
cresses at her breakfast. Mme Putois declared that she enjoyed
lettuce with a pinch of salt and no dressing, and as they talked
the ladies emptied the salad bowl.</p>

<p>None of the guests were dismayed at the dessert, although they
had eaten so enormously. They had the night before them too;
there was no need of haste. The men lit their pipes and drank
more wine while they watched Gervaise cut the cake. Poisson, who
prided himself on his knowledge of the habits of good society,
rose and took the rose from the top and presented it to the
hostess amid the loud applause of the whole party. She fastened
it just over her heart, and the butterfly fluttered at every
movement. A song was proposed&mdash;comic songs were a specialty
with Boche&mdash;and the whole party joined in the chorus. The
men kept time with their heels and the women with their knives on
their glasses. The windows of the shop jarred with the noise.
Virginie had disappeared twice, and the third time, when she came
back, she said to Gervaise:</p>

<p>"My dear, he is still at the restaurant and pretends to be
reading his paper. I fear he is meditating some mischief."</p>

<p>She spoke of Lantier. She had been out to see if he were
anywhere in the vicinity. Gervaise became very grave.</p>

<p>"Is he tipsy?" she asked.</p>

<p>"No indeed, and that is what troubled me. Why on earth should
he stay there so long if he is not drinking? My heart is in my
mouth; I am so afraid something will happen."</p>

<p>The clearstarcher begged her to say no more. Mme Putois
started up and began a fierce piratical song, standing stiff and
erect in her black dress, her pale face surrounded by her black
lace cap, and gesticulating violently. Poisson nodded approval.
He had been to sea, and he knew all about it.</p>

<p>Gervaise, assisted by her mother-in-law, now poured out the
coffee. Her guests insisted on a song from her, declaring that it
was her turn. She refused. Her face was disturbed and pale, so
much so that she was asked if the goose disagreed with her.</p>

<p>Finally she began to sing a plaintive melody all about dreams
and rest. Her eyelids half closed as she ended, and she peered
out into the darkness. Then followed a barcarole from Mme Boche
and a romance from Lorilleux, in which figured perfumes of Araby,
ivory throats, ebony hair, kisses, moonlight and guitars!
Clémence followed with a song which recalled the country
with its descriptions of birds and flowers. Virginie brought down
the house with her imitation of a vivandière, standing
with her hand on her hip and a wineglass in her hand, which she
emptied down her throat as she finished.</p>

<p>But the grand success of the evening was Goujet, who sang in
his rich bass the <i>"Adieux d'Abd-et-Kader."</i> The words
issued from his yellow beard like the call of a trumpet and
thrilled everyone around the table.</p>

<p>Virginie whispered to Gervaise:</p>

<p>"I have just seen Lantier pass the door. Good heavens! There
he is again, standing still and looking in."</p>

<p>Gervaise caught her breath and timidly turned around. The
crowd had increased, attracted by the songs. There were soldiers
and shopkeepers and three little girls, five or six years old,
holding each other by the hand, grave and silent, struck with
wonder and admiration.</p>

<p>Lantier was directly in front of the door. Gervaise met his
eyes and felt the very marrow of her bones chilled; she could not
move hand or foot.</p>

<p>Coupeau called for more wine, and Clémence helped
herself to more strawberries. The singing ceased, and the
conversation turned upon a woman who had hanged herself the day
before in the next street.</p>

<p>It was now Mme Lerat's turn to amuse the company, but she
needed to make certain preparations.</p>

<p>She dipped the corner of her napkin into a glass of water and
applied it to her temples because she was too warm. Then she
asked for a teaspoonful of brandy and wiped her lips.</p>

<p>"I will sing <i>'L'Enfant du Bon Dieu,'</i>" she said
pompously.</p>

<p>She stood up, with her square shoulders like those of a man,
and began:</p>

<p class="poem">
"L'Enfant perdu que sa mère abandonne,<br/>
Troue toujours un asile au Saint lieu,<br/>
Dieu qui le voit, le defend de son trone,<br/>
L'Enfant perdu, c'est L'Enfant du bon Dieu."</p>

<p>She raised her eyes to heaven and placed one hand on her
heart; her voice was not without a certain sympathetic quality,
and Gervaise, already quivering with emotion caused by the
knowledge of Lantier's presence, could no longer restrain her
tears. It seemed to her that she was the deserted child whom
<i>le bon Dieu</i> had taken under His care. Clémence, who
was quite tipsy, burst into loud sobs. The ladies took out their
handkerchiefs and pressed them to their eyes, rather proud of
their tenderness of heart.</p>

<p>The men felt it their duty to respect the feeling shown by the
women and were, in fact, somewhat touched themselves. The wine
had softened their hearts apparently.</p>

<p>Gervaise and Virginie watched the shadows outside. Mme Boche,
in her turn, now caught a glimpse of Lantier and uttered an
exclamation as she wiped away her fast-falling tears. The three
women exchanged terrified, anxious glances.</p>

<p>"Good heavens!" muttered Virginie. "Suppose Coupeau should
turn around. There would be a murder, I am convinced." And the
earnestness of their fixed eyes became so apparent that finally
he said:</p>

<p>"What are you staring at?"</p>

<p>And leaning forward, he, too, saw Lantier.</p>

<p>"This is too much," he muttered, "the dirty ruffian! It is too
much, and I won't have it!"</p>

<p>As he started to his feet with an oath, Gervaise put her hand
on his arm imploringly.</p>

<p>"Put down that knife," she said, "and do not go out, I entreat
of you."</p>

<p>Virginie took away the knife that Coupeau had snatched from
the table, but she could not prevent him from going into the
street. The other guests saw nothing, so entirely absorbed were
they in the touching words which Mme Lerat was still singing.</p>

<p>Gervaise sat with her hands clasped convulsively, breathless
with fear, expecting to hear a cry of rage from the street and
see one of the two men fall to the ground. Virginie and Mme Boche
had something of the same feeling. Coupeau had been so overcome
by the fresh air that when he rushed forward to take Lantier by
the collar he missed his footing and found himself seated quietly
in the gutter.</p>

<p>Lantier moved aside a little without taking his hands from his
pockets.</p>

<p>Coupeau staggered to his feet again, and a violent quarrel
commenced. Gervaise pressed her hands over her eyes; suddenly all
was quiet, and she opened her eyes again and looked out.</p>

<p>To her intense astonishment she saw Lantier and her husband
talking in a quiet, friendly manner.</p>

<p>Gervaise exchanged a look with Mme Boche and Virginie. What
did this mean?</p>

<p>As the women watched them the two men began to walk up and
down in front of the shop. They were talking earnestly. Coupeau
seemed to be urging something, and Lantier refusing. Finally
Coupeau took Lantier's arm and almost dragged him toward the
shop.</p>

<p>"I tell you, you must!" he cried. "You shall drink a glass of
wine with us. Men will be men all the world over. My wife and I
know that perfectly well."</p>

<p>Mme Lerat had finished her song and seated herself with the
air of being utterly exhausted. She asked for a glass of wine.
When she sang that song, she said, she was always torn to pieces,
and it left her nerves in a terrible state.</p>

<p>Lantier had been placed at the table by Coupeau and was eating
a piece of cake, leisurely dipping it into his glass of wine.
With the exception of Mme Boche and Virginie, no one knew
him.</p>

<p>The Lorilleuxs looked at him with some suspicion, which,
however, was very far from the mark. An awkward silence followed,
broken by Coupeau, who said simply:</p>

<p>"He is a friend of ours!"</p>

<p>And turning to his wife, he added:</p>

<p>"Can't you move round a little? Perhaps there is a cup of hot
coffee!"</p>

<p>Gervaise looked from one to the other. She was literally
dazed. When her husband first appeared with her former lover she
had clasped her hands over her forehead with that instinctive
gesture with which in a great storm one waits for the approach of
the thunderclap.</p>

<p>It did not seem possible that the walls would not fall and
crush them all. Then seeing the two men calmly seated together,
it all at once seemed perfectly natural to her. She was tired of
thinking about it and preferred to accept it. Why, after all,
should she worry? No one else did. Everyone seemed to be
satisfied; why should not she be also?</p>

<p>The children had fallen asleep in the back room, Pauline with
her head on Etienne's shoulder. Gervaise started as her eyes fell
on her boy. She was shocked at the thought of his father sitting
there eating cake without showing the least desire to see his
child. She longed to awaken him and show him to Lantier. And then
again she had a feeling of passing wonder at the manner in which
things settled themselves in this world.</p>

<p>She would not disturb the serenity of matters now, so she
brought in the coffeepot and poured out a cup for Lantier, who
received it without even looking up at her as he murmured his
thanks.</p>

<p>"Now it is my turn to sing!" shouted Coupeau.</p>

<p>His song was one familiar to them all and even to the street,
for the little crowd at the door joined in the chorus. The guests
within were all more or less tipsy, and there was so much noise
that the policemen ran to quell a riot, but when they saw Poisson
they bowed respectfully and passed on.</p>

<p>No one of the party ever knew how or at what hour the
festivities terminated. It must have been very late, for there
was not a human being in the street when they departed. They
vaguely remembered having joined hands and danced around the
table. Gervaise remembered that Lantier was the last to leave,
that he passed her as she stood in the doorway. She felt a breath
on her cheek, but whether it was his or the night air she could
not tell.</p>

<p>Mme Lerat had refused to return to Batignolles so late, and a
mattress was laid on the floor in the shop near the table. She
slept there amid the debris of the feast, and a neighbor's cat
profited by an open window to establish herself by her side,
where she crunched the bones of the goose all night between her
fine, sharp teeth.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2>CHAPTER VIII<br/>
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE</h2>

<p>The following Saturday Coupeau, who had not been home to
dinner, came in with Lantier about ten o'clock. They had been
eating pigs' feet at a restaurant at Montmarte.</p>

<p>"Don't scold, wife," said Coupeau; "we have not been drinking,
you see; we can walk perfectly straight." And he went on to say
how they had met each other quite by accident in the street and
how Lantier had refused to drink with him, saying that when a man
had married a nice little woman he had no business to throw away
his money in that way. Gervaise listened with a faint smile; she
had no idea of scolding. Oh no, it was not worth the trouble, but
she was much agitated at seeing the two men together so soon
again, and with trembling hands she knotted up her loosened
hair.</p>

<p>Her workwomen had been gone some time. Nana and Mamma Coupeau
were in bed, and Gervaise, who was just closing her shutters when
her husband appeared, brought out some glasses and the remains of
a bottle of brandy. Lantier did not sit down and avoided
addressing her directly.</p>

<p>When she served him, however, he exclaimed:</p>

<p>"A drop, madame; a mere drop!"</p>

<p>Coupeau looked at them for a moment and then expressed his
mind fully. They were no fools, he said, nor were they children.
The past was the past. If people kept up their enmities for nine
or ten years no one would have a soul to speak to soon. As for
himself, he was made differently. He knew they were honest
people, and he was sure he could trust them.</p>

<p>"Of course," murmured Gervaise, hardly knowing what she said,
"of course."</p>

<p>"I regard her as a sister," said Lantier, "only as a
sister."</p>

<p>"Give us your hand on that," cried Coupeau, "and let us be
good friends in the future. After all, a good heart is better
than gold, and I estimate friendship as above all price."</p>

<p>And he gave himself a little tap on his breast and looked
about for applause, as if he had uttered rather a noble
sentiment.</p>

<p>Then the three silently drank their brandy. Gervaise looked at
Lantier and saw him for the first time, for on the night of the
fete she had seen him, as it were, through a glass, darkly.</p>

<p>He had grown very stout, and his arms and legs very heavy. But
his face was still handsome, although somewhat bloated by liquor
and good living. He was dressed with care and did not look any
older than his years. He was thirty-five. He wore gray pantaloons
and a dark blue frock coat, like any gentleman, and had a watch
and a chain on which hung a ring&mdash;a souvenir,
apparently.</p>

<p>"I must go," he said presently.</p>

<p>He was at the door when Coupeau recalled him to say that he
must never pass without coming in to say, "How do you do?"</p>

<p>Meanwhile Gervaise, who had disappeared, returned, pushing
Etienne before her. The boy was half asleep but smiled as he
rubbed his eyes. When he saw Lantier he stared and looked
uneasily from him to Coupeau.</p>

<p>"Do you know this gentleman?" said his mother.</p>

<p>The child looked away and did not answer, but when his mother
repeated the question he made a little sign that he remembered
him. Lantier, grave and silent, stood still. When Etienne went
toward him he stooped and kissed the child, who did not look at
him but burst into tears, and when he was violently reproached by
Coupeau he rushed away.</p>

<p>"It is excitement," said his mother, who was herself very
pale.</p>

<p>"He is usually very good and very obedient," said Coupeau. "I
have brought him up well, as you will find out. He will soon get
used to you. He must learn something of life, you see, and will
understand one of these days that people must forget and forgive,
and I would cut off my head sooner than prevent a father from
seeing his child!"</p>

<p>He then proposed to finish the bottle of brandy. They all
three drank together again. Lantier was quite undisturbed, and
before he left he insisted on aiding Coupeau to shut up the shop.
Then as he dusted his hands with his handkerchief he wished them
a careless good night.</p>

<p>"Sleep well. I am going to try and catch the omnibus. I will
see you soon again."</p>

<p>Lantier kept his word and was seen from that time very often
in the shop. He came only when Coupeau was home and asked for him
before he crossed the threshold. Then seated near the window,
always wearing a frock coat, fresh linen and carefully shaved, he
kept up a conversation like a man who had seen something of the
world. By degrees Coupeau learned something of his life. For the
last eight years he had been at the head of a hat manufactory,
and when he was asked why he had given it up he said vaguely that
he was not satisfied with his partner; he was a rascal, and so
on.</p>

<p>But his former position still imparted to him a certain air of
importance. He said, also, that he was on the point of concluding
an important matter&mdash;that certain business houses were in
process of establishing themselves, the management of which would
be virtually in his hands. In the meantime he had absolutely not
one thing to do but to walk about with his hands in his
pockets.</p>

<p>Any day he pleased, however, he could start again. He had only
to decide on some house. Coupeau did not altogether believe this
tale and insisted that he must be doing something which he did
not choose to tell; otherwise how did he live?</p>

<p>The truth was that Lantier, excessively talkative in regard to
other people's affairs, was very reticent about his own. He lied
quite as often as he spoke the truth and would never tell where
he resided. He said he was never at home, so it was of no use for
anyone to come and see him.</p>

<p>"I am very careful," he said, "in making an engagement. I do
not choose to bind myself to a man and find, when it is too late,
that he intends to make a slave of me. I went one Monday to
Champion at Monrouge. That evening Champion began a political
discussion. He and I differed entirely, and on Tuesday I threw up
the situation. You can't blame me, I am sure, for not being
willing to sell my soul and my convictions for seven francs per
day!"</p>

<p>It was now November. Lantier occasionally brought a bunch of
violets to Gervaise. By degrees his visits became more frequent.
He seemed determined to fascinate the whole house, even the
<i>Quartier</i>, and he began by ingratiating himself with
Clémence and Mme Putois, showing them both the greatest
possible attention.</p>

<p>These two women adored him at the end of a month. Mme Boche,
whom he flattered by calling on her in her loge, had all sorts of
pleasant things to say about him.</p>

<p>As to the Lorilleuxs, they were furious when they found out
who he was and declared that it was a sin and a disgrace for
Gervaise to bring him into her house. But one fine day Lantier
bearded them in their den and ordered a chain made for a lady of
his acquaintance and made himself so agreeable that they begged
him to sit down and kept him an hour. After this visit they
expressed their astonishment that a man so distinguished could
ever have seen anything in Wooden Legs to admire. By degrees,
therefore, people had become accustomed to seeing him and no
longer expressed their horror or amazement. Goujet was the only
one who was disturbed. If Lantier came in while he was there he
at once departed and avoided all intercourse with him.</p>

<p>Gervaise was very unhappy. She was conscious of a returning
inclination for Lantier, and she was afraid of herself and of
him. She thought of him constantly; he had taken entire
possession of her imagination. But she grew calmer as days passed
on, finding that he never tried to see her alone and that he
rarely looked at her and never laid the tip of his finger on
her.</p>

<p>Virginie, who seemed to read her through and through, asked
her what she feared. Was there ever a man more respectful?</p>

<p>But out of mischief or worse, the woman contrived to get the
two into a corner one day and then led the conversation into a
most dangerous direction. Lantier, in reply to some question,
said in measured tones that his heart was dead, that he lived now
only for his son. He never thought of Claude, who was away. He
embraced Etienne every night but soon forgot he was in the room
and amused himself with Clémence.</p>

<p>Then Gervaise began to realize that the past was dead. Lantier
had brought back to her the memory of Plassans and the
Hôtel Boncœur. But this faded away again, and, seeing him
constantly, the past was absorbed in the present. She shook off
these memories almost with disgust. Yes, it was all over, and
should he ever dare to allude to former years she would complain
to her husband.</p>

<p>She began again to think of Goujet almost unconsciously.</p>

<p>One morning Clémence said that the night before she had
seen Lantier walking with a woman who had his arm. Yes, he was
coming up La Rue Notre-Dame de Lorette; the woman was a blonde
and no better than she should be. Clémence added that she
had followed them until the woman reached a house where she went
in. Lantier waited in the street until there was a window opened,
which was evidently a signal, for he went into the house at
once.</p>

<p>Gervaise was ironing a white dress; she smiled slightly and
said that she believed a Provencal was always crazy after women,
and at night when Lantier appeared she was quite amused at
Clémence, who at once attacked him. He seemed to be, on
the whole, rather pleased that he had been seen. The person was
an old friend, he said, one whom he had not seen for some
time&mdash;a very stylish woman, in fact&mdash;and he told
Clémence to smell of his handkerchief on which his friend
had put some of the perfume she used. Just then Etienne came in,
and his father became very grave and said that he was in
jest&mdash;that his heart was dead.</p>

<p>Gervaise nodded approval of this sentiment, but she did not
speak.</p>

<p>When spring came Lantier began to talk of moving into that
neighborhood. He wanted a furnished, clean room. Mme Boche and
Gervaise tried to find one for him. But they did not meet with
any success. He was altogether too fastidious in his
requirements. Every evening at the Coupeaus' he wished he could
find people like themselves who would take a lodger.</p>

<p>"You are very comfortable here, I am sure," he would say
regularly.</p>

<p>Finally one night when he had uttered this phrase, as usual,
Coupeau cried out:</p>

<p>"If you like this place so much why don't you stay here? We
can make room for you."</p>

<p>And he explained that the linen room could be so arranged that
it would be very comfortable, and Etienne could sleep on a
mattress in the corner.</p>

<p>"No, no," said Lantier; "it would trouble you too much. I know
that you have the most generous heart in the world, but I cannot
impose upon you. Your room would be a passageway to mine, and
that would not be agreeable to any of us."</p>

<p>"Nonsense," said Coupeau. "Have we no invention? There are two
windows; can't one be cut down to the floor and used as a door?
In that case you would enter from the court and not through the
shop. You would be by yourself, and we by ourselves."</p>

<p>There was a long silence, broken finally by Lantier.</p>

<p>"If this could be done," he said, "I should like it, but I am
afraid you would find yourselves too crowded."</p>

<p>He did not look at Gervaise as he spoke, but it was clear that
he was only waiting for a word from her. She did not like the
plan at all; not that the thought of Lantier living under their
roof disturbed her, but she had no idea where she could put the
linen as it came in to be washed and again when it was
rough-dry.</p>

<p>But Coupeau was enchanted with the plan. The rent, he said,
had always been heavy to carry, and now they would gain twenty
francs per month. It was not dear for him, and it would help them
decidedly. He told his wife that she could have two great boxes
made in which all the linen of the <i>Quartier</i> could be
piled.</p>

<p>Gervaise still hesitated, questioning Mamma Coupeau with her
eyes. Lantier had long since propitiated the old lady by bringing
her gumdrops for her cough.</p>

<p>"If we could arrange it I am sure&mdash;" said Gervaise
hesitatingly.</p>

<p>"You are too kind," remonstrated Lantier. "I really feel that
it would be an intrusion."</p>

<p>Coupeau flamed out. Why did she not speak up, he should like
to know? Instead of stammering and behaving like a fool?</p>

<p>"Etienne! Etienne!" he shouted.</p>

<p>The boy was asleep with his head on the table. He started
up.</p>

<p>"Listen to me. Say to this gentleman, 'I wish it.' Say just
those words and nothing more."</p>

<p>"I wish it!" stammered Etienne, half asleep.</p>

<p>Everybody laughed. But Lantier almost instantly resumed his
solemn air. He pressed Coupeau's hand cordially.</p>

<p>"I accept your proposition," he said. "It is a most friendly
one, and I thank you in my name and in that of my child."</p>

<p>The next morning Marescot, the owner of the house, happening
to call, Gervaise spoke to him of the matter. At first he
absolutely refused and was as disturbed and angry as if she had
asked him to build on a wing for her especial accommodation. Then
after a minute examination of the premises he ended by giving his
consent, only on condition, however, that he should not be
required to pay any portion of the expense, and the Coupeaus
signed a paper, agreeing to put everything into its original
condition at the expiration of their lease.</p>

<p>That same evening Coupeau brought in a mason, a painter and a
carpenter, all friends and boon companions of his, who would do
this little job at night, after their day's work was over.</p>

<p>The cutting of the door, the painting and the cleaning would
come to about one hundred francs, and Coupeau agreed to pay them
as fast as his tenant paid him.</p>

<p>The next question was how to furnish the room? Gervaise left
Mamma Coupeau's wardrobe in it. She added a table and two chairs
from her own room. She was compelled to buy a bed and dressing
table and divers other things, which amounted to one hundred and
thirty francs. This she must pay for ten francs each month. So
that for nearly a year they could derive no benefit from their
new lodger.</p>

<p>It was early in June that Lantier took possession of his new
quarters. Coupeau had offered the night before to help him with
his trunk in order to avoid the thirty sous for a fiacre. But the
other seemed embarrassed and said his trunk was heavy, and it
seemed as if he preferred to keep it a secret even now where he
resided.</p>

<p>He came about three o'clock. Coupeau was not there, and
Gervaise, standing at her shop door, turned white as she
recognized the trunk on the fiacre. It was their old one with
which they had traveled from Plassans. Now it was banged and
battered and strapped with cords.</p>

<p>She saw it brought in as she had often seen it in her dreams,
and she vaguely wondered if it were the same fiacre which had
taken him and Adèle away. Boche welcomed Lantier
cordially. Gervaise stood by in silent bewilderment, watching
them place the trunk in her lodger's room. Then hardly knowing
what she said, she murmured:</p>

<p>"We must take a glass of wine together&mdash;"</p>

<p>Lantier, who was busy untying the cords on his trunk, did not
look up, and she added:</p>

<p>"You will join us, Monsieur Boche!"</p>

<p>And she went for some wine and glasses. At that moment she
caught sight of Poisson passing the door. She gave him a nod and
a wink which he perfectly understood: it meant, when he was on
duty, that he was offered a glass of wine. He went round by the
courtyard in order not to be seen. Lantier never saw him without
some joke in regard to his political convictions, which, however,
had not prevented the men from becoming excellent friends.</p>

<p>To one of these jests Boche now replied:</p>

<p>"Did you know," he said, "that when the emperor was in London
he was a policeman, and his special duty was to carry all the
intoxicated women to the station house?"</p>

<p>Gervaise had filled three glasses on the table. She did not
care for any wine; she was sick at heart as she stood looking at
Lantier kneeling on the floor by the side of the trunk. She was
wild to know what it contained. She remembered that in one corner
was a pile of stockings, a shirt or two and an old hat. Were
those things still there? Was she to be confronted with those
tattered relics of the past?</p>

<p>Lantier did not lift the lid, however; he rose and, going to
the table, held his glass high in his hands.</p>

<p>"To your health, madame!" he said.</p>

<p>And Poisson and Boche drank with him.</p>

<p>Gervaise filled their glasses again. The three men wiped their
lips with the backs of their hands.</p>

<p>Then Lantier opened his trunk. It was filled with a hodgepodge
of papers, books, old clothes and bundles of linen. He pulled out
a saucepan, then a pair of boots, followed by a bust of Ledru
Rollin with a broken nose, then an embroidered shirt and a pair
of ragged pantaloons, and Gervaise perceived a mingled and odious
smell of tobacco, leather and dust.</p>

<p>No, the old hat was not in the left corner; in its place was a
pin cushion, the gift of some woman. All at once the strange
anxiety with which she had watched the opening of this trunk
disappeared, and in its place came an intense sadness as she
followed each article with her eyes as Lantier took them out and
wondered which belonged to her time and which to the days when
another woman filled his life.</p>

<p>"Look here, Poisson," cried Lantier, pulling out a small book.
It was a scurrilous attack on the emperor, printed at Brussels,
entitled The Amours of Napoleon III.</p>

<p>Poisson was aghast. He found no words with which to defend the
emperor. It was in a book&mdash;of course, therefore, it was
true. Lantier, with a laugh of triumph, turned away and began to
pile up his books and papers, grumbling a little that there were
no shelves on which to put them. Gervaise promised to buy some
for him. He owned Louis Blanc's <i>Histoire de Dix Ans</i>, all
but the first volume, which he had never had, Lamartine's <i>Les
Girondins, The Mysteries of Paris</i> and <i>The Wandering
Jew</i>, by Eugène Sue, without counting a pile of incendiary
volumes which he had picked up at bookstalls. His old newspapers
he regarded with especial respect. He had collected them with
care for years: whenever he had read an article at a cafe of
which he approved, he bought the journal and preserved it. He
consequently had an enormous quantity, of all dates and names,
tied together without order or sequence.</p>

<p>He laid them all in a corner of the room, saying as he did
so:</p>

<p>"If people would study those sheets and adopt the ideas
therein, society would be far better organized than it now is.
Your emperor and all his minions would come down a bit on the
ladder&mdash;"</p>

<p>Here he was interrupted by Poisson, whose red imperial and
mustache irradiated his pale face.</p>

<p>"And the army," he said, "what would you do with that?"</p>

<p>Lantier became very much excited.</p>

<p>"The army!" he cried. "I would scatter it to the four winds of
heaven! I want the military system of the country abolished! I
want the abolition of titles and monopolies! I want salaries
equalized! I want liberty for everyone. Divorces, too&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Yes; divorces, of course," interposed Boche. "That is needed
in the cause of morality."</p>

<p>Poisson threw back his head, ready for an argument, but
Gervaise, who did not like discussions, interfered. She had
recovered from the torpor into which she had been plunged by the
sight of this trunk, and she asked the men to take another glass.
Lantier was suddenly subdued and drank his wine, but Boche looked
at Poisson uneasily.</p>

<p>"All this talk is between ourselves, is it not?" he said to
the policeman.</p>

<p>Poisson did not allow him to finish: he laid his hand on his
heart and declared that he was no spy. Their words went in at one
ear and out at another. He had forgotten them already.</p>

<p>Coupeau by this time appeared, and more wine was sent for. But
Poisson dared linger no longer, and, stiff and haughty, he
departed through the courtyard.</p>

<p>From the very first Lantier was made thoroughly at home.
Lantier had his separate room, private entrance and key. But he
went through the shop almost always. The accumulation of linen
disturbed Gervaise, for her husband never arranged the boxes he
had promised, and she was obliged to stow it away in all sorts of
places, under the bed and in the corner. She did not like making
up Etienne's mattress late at night either.</p>

<p>Goujet had spoken of sending the child to Lille to his own old
master, who wanted apprentices. The plan pleased her,
particularly as the boy, who was not very happy at home, was
impatient to become his own master. But she dared not ask
Lantier, who had come there to live ostensibly to be near his
son. She felt, therefore, that it was hardly a good plan to send
the boy away within a couple of weeks after his father's
arrival.</p>

<p>When, however, she did make up her mind to approach the
subject he expressed warm approval of the idea, saying that
youths were far better in the country than in Paris.</p>

<p>Finally it was decided that Etienne should go, and when the
morning of his departure arrived Lantier read his son a long
lecture and then sent him off, and the house settled down into
new habits.</p>

<p>Gervaise became accustomed to seeing the dirty linen lying
about and to seeing Lantier coming in and going out. He still
talked with an important air of his business operations. He went
out daily, dressed with the utmost care and came home, declaring
that he was worn out with the discussions in which he had been
engaged and which involved the gravest and most important
interests.</p>

<p>He rose about ten o'clock, took a walk if the day pleased him,
and if it rained he sat in the shop and read his paper. He liked
to be there. It was his delight to live surrounded by a circle of
worshiping women, and he basked indolently in the warmth and
atmosphere of ease and comfort, which characterized the
place.</p>

<p>At first Lantier took his meals at the restaurant at the
corner, but after a while he dined three or four times a week
with the Coupeaus and finally requested permission to board with
them and agreed to pay them fifteen francs each Saturday. Thus he
was regularly installed and was one of the family. He was seen in
his shirt sleeves in the shop every morning, attending to any
little matters or receiving orders from the customers. He induced
Gervaise to leave her own wine merchant and go to a friend of his
own. Then he found fault with the bread and sent Augustine to the
Vienna bakery in a distant <i>faubourg</i>. He changed the grocer
but kept the butcher on account of his political opinions.</p>

<p>At the end of a month he had instituted a change in the
cuisine. Everything was cooked in oil: being a Provencal, that
was what he adored. He made the omelets himself, which were as
tough as leather. He superintended Mamma Coupeau and insisted
that the beefsteaks should be thoroughly cooked, until they were
like the soles of an old shoe. He watched the salad to see that
nothing went in which he did not like. His favorite dish was
vermicelli, into which he poured half a bottle of oil. This he
and Gervaise ate together, for the others, being Parisians, could
not be induced to taste it.</p>

<p>By degrees Lantier attended to all those affairs which fall to
the share of the master of the house and to various details of
their business, in addition. He insisted that if the five francs
which the Lorilleux people had agreed to pay toward the support
of Mamma Coupeau was not forthcoming they should go to law about
it. In fact, ten francs was what they ought to pay. He himself
would go and see if he could not make them agree to that. He went
up at once and asked them in such a way that he returned in
triumph with the ten francs. And Mme Lerat, too, did the same at
his representation. Mamma Coupeau could have kissed Lantier's
hands, who played the part, besides, of an arbiter in the
quarrels between the old woman and Gervaise.</p>

<p>The latter, as was natural, sometimes lost patience with the
old woman, who retreated to her bed to weep. He would bluster
about and ask if they were simpletons, to amuse people with their
disagreements, and finally induced them to kiss and be friends
once more.</p>

<p>He expressed his mind freely in regard to Nana also. In his
opinion she was brought up very badly, and here he was quite
right, for when her father cuffed her her mother upheld her, and
when, in her turn, the mother reproved, the father made a
scene.</p>

<p>Nana was delighted at this and felt herself free to do much as
she pleased.</p>

<p>She had started a new game at the farriery opposite. She spent
entire days swinging on the shafts of the wagons. She concealed
herself, with her troop of followers, at the back of the dark
court, redly lit by the forge, and then would make sudden rushes
with screams and whoops, followed by every child in the
neighborhood, reminding one of a flock of martins or
sparrows.</p>

<p>Lantier was the only one whose scoldings had any effect. She
listened to him graciously. This child of ten years of age,
precocious and vicious, coquetted with him as if she had been a
grown woman. He finally assumed the care of her education. He
taught her to dance and to talk slang!</p>

<p>Thus a year passed away. The whole neighborhood supposed
Lantier to be a man of means&mdash;otherwise how did the Coupeaus
live as they did? Gervaise, to be sure, still made money, but she
supported two men who did nothing, and the shop, of course, did
not make enough for that. The truth was that Lantier had never
paid one sou, either for board or lodging. He said he would let
it run on, and when it amounted to a good sum he would pay it all
at once.</p>

<p>After that Gervaise never dared to ask him for a centime. She
got bread, wine and meat on credit; bills were running up
everywhere, for their expenditures amounted to three and four
francs every day. She had never paid anything, even a trifle on
account, to the man from whom she had bought her furniture or to
Coupeau's three friends who had done the work in Lantier's room.
The tradespeople were beginning to grumble and treated her with
less politeness.</p>

<p>But she seemed to be insensible to this; she chose the most
expensive things, having thrown economy to the winds, since she
had given up paying for things at once. She always intended,
however, to pay eventually and had a vague notion of earning
hundreds of francs daily in some extraordinary way by which she
could pay all these people.</p>

<p>About the middle of summer Clémence departed, for there
was not enough work for two women; she had waited for her money
for some weeks. Lantier and Coupeau were quite undisturbed,
however. They were in the best of spirits and seemed to be
growing fat over the ruined business.</p>

<p>In the <i>Quartier</i> there was a vast deal of gossip.
Everybody wondered as to the terms on which Lantier and Gervaise
now stood. The Lorilleuxs viciously declared that Gervaise would
be glad enough to resume her old relations with Lantier but that
he would have nothing to do with her, for she had grown old and
ugly. The Boche people took a different view, but while everyone
declared that the whole arrangement was a most improper one, they
finally accepted it as quite a matter of course and altogether
natural.</p>

<p>It is quite possible there were other homes which were quite
as open to invidious remarks within a stone's throw, but these
Coupeaus, as their neighbors said, were good, kind people.
Lantier was especially ingratiating. It was decided, therefore,
to let things go their own way undisturbed.</p>

<p>Gervaise lived quietly indifferent to, and possibly entirely
unsuspicious of, all these scandals. By and by it came to pass
that her husband's own people looked on her as utterly heartless.
Mme Lerat made her appearance every evening, and she treated
Lantier as if he were utterly irresistible, into whose arms any
and every woman would be only too glad to fall. An actual league
seemed to be forming against Gervaise: all the women insisted on
giving her a lover.</p>

<p>But she saw none of these fascinations in him. He had changed,
unquestionably, and the external changes were all in his favor.
He wore a frock coat and had acquired a certain polish. But she
who knew him so well looked down into his soul through his eyes
and shuddered at much she saw there. She could not understand
what others saw in him to admire. And she said so one day to
Virginie. Then Mme Lerat and Virginie vied with each other in the
stories they told of Clémence and himself&mdash;what they
did and said whenever her back was turned&mdash;and now they were
sure, since she had left the establishment, that he went
regularly to see her.</p>

<p>"Well, what of it?" asked Gervaise, her voice trembling. "What
have I to do with that?"</p>

<p>But she looked into Virginie's dark brown eyes, which were
specked with gold and emitted sparks as do those of cats. But the
woman put on a stupid look as she answered:</p>

<p>"Why, nothing, of course; only I should think you would advise
him not to have anything to do with such a person."</p>

<p>Lantier was gradually changing his manner to Gervaise. Now
when he shook hands with her he held her fingers longer than was
necessary. He watched her incessantly and fixed his bold eyes
upon her. He leaned over her so closely that she felt his breath
on her cheek. But one evening, being alone with her, he caught
her in both arms. At that moment Goujet entered. Gervaise
wrenched herself free, and the three exchanged a few words as if
nothing had happened. Goujet was very pale and seemed
embarrassed, supposing that he had intruded upon them and that
she had pushed Lantier aside only because she did not choose to
be embraced in public.</p>

<p>The next day Gervaise was miserable, unhappy and restless. She
could not iron a handkerchief. She wanted to see Goujet and tell
him just what had happened, but ever since Etienne had gone to
Lille she had given up going to the forge, as she was quite
unable to face the knowing winks with which his comrades received
her. But this day she determined to go, and, taking an empty
basket on her arms, she started off, pretending that she was
going with skirts to some customers in La Rue des
Portes-Blanches.</p>

<p>Goujet seemed to be expecting her, for she met him loitering
on the corner.</p>

<p>"Ah," he said with a wan smile, "you are going home, I
presume?"</p>

<p>He hardly knew what he was saying, and they both turned toward
Montmartre without another word. They merely wished to go away
from the forge. They passed several manufactories and soon found
themselves with an open field before them. A goat was tethered
near by and bleating as it browsed, and a dead tree was crumbling
away in the hot sun.</p>

<p>"One might almost think oneself in the country," murmured
Gervaise.</p>

<p>They took a seat under the dead tree. The clearstarcher set
the basket down at her feet. Before them stretched the heights of
Montmartre, with its rows of yellow and gray houses amid clumps
of trees, and when they threw back their heads a little they saw
the whole sky above, clear and cloudless, but the sunlight
dazzled them, and they looked over to the misty outlines of the
<i>faubourg</i> and watched the smoke rising from tall chimneys
in regular puffs, indicating the machinery which impelled it.
These great sighs seemed to relieve their own oppressed
breasts.</p>

<p>"Yes," said Gervaise after a long silence. "I have been on a
long walk, and I came out&mdash;"</p>

<p>She stopped. After having been so eager for an explanation she
found herself unable to speak and overwhelmed with shame. She
knew that he as well as herself had come to that place with the
wish and intention of speaking on one especial subject, and yet
neither of them dared to allude to it. The occurrence of the
previous evening weighed on both their souls.</p>

<p>Then with a heart torn with anguish and with tears in her
eyes, she told him of the death of Mme Bijard, who had breathed
her last that morning after suffering unheard-of agonies.</p>

<p>"It was caused by a kick of Bijard's," she said in her low,
soft voice; "some internal injury. For three days she has
suffered frightfully. Why are not such men punished? I suppose,
though, if the law undertook to punish all the wretches who kill
their wives that it would have too much to do. After all, one
kick more or less: what does it matter in the end? And this poor
creature, in her desire to save her husband from the scaffold,
declared she had fallen over a tub."</p>

<p>Goujet did not speak. He sat pulling up the tufts of
grass.</p>

<p>"It is not a fortnight," continued Gervaise, "since she weaned
her last baby, and here is that child Lalie left to take care of
two mites. She is not eight years old but as quiet and sensible
as if she were a grown woman, and her father kicks and strikes
her too. Poor little soul! There are some persons in this world
who seem born to suffer."</p>

<p>Goujet looked at her and then said suddenly, with trembling
lips:</p>

<p>"You made me suffer yesterday."</p>

<p>Gervaise clasped her hands imploringly, and he continued:</p>

<p>"I knew of course how it must end; only you should not have
allowed me to think&mdash;"</p>

<p>He could not finish. She started up, seeing what his
convictions were. She cried out:</p>

<p>"You are wrong! I swear to you that you are wrong! He was
going to kiss me, but his lips did not touch me, and it is the
very first time that he made the attempt. Believe me, for I
swear&mdash;on all that I hold most sacred&mdash;that I am
telling you the truth."</p>

<p>But the blacksmith shook his head. He knew that women did not
always tell the truth on such points. Gervaise then became very
grave.</p>

<p>"You know me well," she said; "you know that I am no liar. I
again repeat that Lantier and I are friends. We shall never be
anything more, for if that should ever come to pass I should
regard myself as the vilest of the vile and should be unworthy of
the friendship of a man like yourself." Her face was so honest,
her eyes were so clear and frank, that he could do no less than
believe her. Once more he breathed freely. He held her hand for
the first time. Both were silent. White clouds sailed slowly
above their heads with the majesty of swans. The goat looked at
them and bleated piteously, eager to be released, and they stood
hand in hand on that bleak slope with tears in their eyes.</p>

<p>"Your mother likes me no longer," said Gervaise in a low
voice. "Do not say no; how can it be otherwise? We owe you so
much money."</p>

<p>He roughly shook her arm in his eagerness to check the words
on her lips; he would not hear her. He tried to speak, but his
throat was too dry; he choked a little and then he burst out:</p>

<p>"Listen to me," he cried; "I have long wished to say something
to you. You are not happy. My mother says things are all going
wrong with you, and," he hesitated, "we must go away together and
at once."</p>

<p>She looked at him, not understanding him but impressed by this
abrupt declaration of a love from him, who had never before
opened his lips in regard to it.</p>

<p>"What do you mean?" she said.</p>

<p>"I mean," he answered without looking in her face, "that we
two can go away and live in Belgium. It is almost the same to me
as home, and both of us could get work and live comfortably."</p>

<p>The color came to her face, which she would have hidden on his
shoulder to hide her shame and confusion. He was a strange fellow
to propose an elopement. It was like a book and like the things
she heard of in high society. She had often seen and known of the
workmen about her making love to married women, but they did not
think of running away with them.</p>

<p>"Ah, Monsieur Goujet!" she murmured, but she could say no
more.</p>

<p>"Yes," he said, "we two would live all by ourselves."</p>

<p>But as her self-possession returned she refused with
firmness.</p>

<p>"It is impossible," she said, "and it would be very wrong. I
am married and I have children. I know that you are fond of me,
and I love you too much to allow you to commit any such folly as
you are talking of, and this would be an enormous folly. No; we
must live on as we are. We respect each other now. Let us
continue to do so. That is a great deal and will help us over
many a roughness in our paths. And when we try to do right we are
sure of a reward."</p>

<p>He shook his head as he listened to her, but he felt she was
right. Suddenly he snatched her in his arms and kissed her
furiously once and then dropped her and turned abruptly away. She
was not angry, but the locksmith trembled from head to foot. He
began to gather some of the wild daisies, not knowing what to do
with his hands, and tossed them into her empty basket. This
occupation amused him and tranquillized him. He broke off the
head of the flowers and, when he missed his mark and they fell
short of the basket, laughed aloud.</p>

<p>Gervaise sat with her back against the tree, happy and calm.
And when she set forth on her walk home her basket was full of
daisies, and she was talking of Etienne.</p>

<p>In reality Gervaise was more afraid of Lantier than she was
willing to admit even to herself. She was fully determined never
to allow the smallest familiarity, but she was afraid that she
might yield to his persuasions, for she well knew the weakness
and amiability of her nature and how hard it was for her to
persist in any opposition to anyone.</p>

<p>Lantier, however, did not put this determination on her part
to the test. He was often alone with her now and was always quiet
and respectful. Coupeau declared to everyone that Lantier was a
true friend. There was no nonsense about him; he could be relied
upon always and in all emergencies. And he trusted him
thoroughly, he declared. When they went out together&mdash;the
three&mdash;on Sundays he bade his wife and Lantier walk arm in
arm, while he mounted guard behind, ready to cuff the ears of
anyone who ventured on a disrespectful glance, a sneer or a
wink.</p>

<p>He laughed good-naturedly before Lantier's face, told him he
put on a great many airs with his coats and his books, but he
liked him in spite of them. They understood each other, he said,
and a man's liking for another man is more solid and enduring
than his love for a woman.</p>

<p>Coupeau and Lantier made the money fly. Lantier was
continually borrowing money from Gervaise&mdash;ten francs,
twenty francs&mdash;whenever he knew there was money in the
house. It was always because he was in pressing need for some
business matter. But still on those same days he took Coupeau off
with him and at some distant restaurant ordered and devoured such
dishes as they could not obtain at home, and these dishes were
washed down by bottle after bottle of wine.</p>

<p>Coupeau would have preferred to get tipsy without the food,
but he was impressed by the elegance and experience of his
friend, who found on the carte so many extraordinary sauces. He
had never seen a man like him, he declared, so dainty and so
difficult. He wondered if all southerners were the same as he
watched him discussing the dishes with the waiter and sending
away a dish that was too salty or had too much pepper.</p>

<p>Neither could he endure a draft: his skin was all blue if a
door was left open, and he made no end of a row until it was
closed again.</p>

<p>Lantier was not wasteful in certain ways, for he never gave a
garçon more than two sous after he had served a meal that
cost some seven or eight francs.</p>

<p>They never alluded to these dinners the next morning at their
simple breakfast with Gervaise. Naturally people cannot frolic
and work, too, and since Lantier had become a member of his
household Coupeau had never lifted a tool. He knew every drinking
shop for miles around and would sit and guzzle deep into the
night, not always pleased to find himself deserted by Lantier,
who never was known to be overcome by liquor.</p>

<p>About the first of November Coupeau turned over a new leaf; he
declared he was going to work the next day, and Lantier thereupon
preached a little sermon, declaring that labor ennobled man, and
in the morning arose before it was light to accompany his friend
to the shop, as a mark of the respect he felt. But when they
reached a wineshop on the corner they entered to take a glass
merely to cement good resolutions.</p>

<p>Near the counter they beheld Bibi-la-Grillade smoking his pipe
with a sulky air.</p>

<p>"What is the matter, Bibi?" cried Coupeau.</p>

<p>"Nothing," answered his comrade, "except that I got my walking
ticket yesterday. Perdition seize all masters!" he added
fiercely.</p>

<p>And Bibi accepted a glass of liquor. Lantier defended the
masters. They were not so bad after all; then, too, how were the
men to get along without them? "To be sure," continued Lantier,
"I manage pretty well, for I don't have much to do with them
myself!"</p>

<p>"Come, my boy," he added, turning to Coupeau; "we shall be
late if we don't look out."</p>

<p>Bibi went out with them. Day was just breaking, gray and
cloudy. It had rained the night before and was damp and warm. The
street lamps had just been extinguished. There was one continued
tramp of men going to their work.</p>

<p>Coupeau, with his bag of tools on his shoulder, shuffled
along; his footsteps had long since lost their ring.</p>

<p>"Bibi," he said, "come with me; the master told me to bring a
comrade if I pleased."</p>

<p>"It won't be me then," answered Bibi. "I wash my hands of them
all. No more masters for me, I tell you! But I dare say
Mes-Bottes would be glad of the offer."</p>

<p>And as they reached the Assommoir they saw Mes-Bottes within.
Notwithstanding the fact that it was daylight, the gas was
blazing in the Assommoir. Lantier remained outside and told
Coupeau to make haste, as they had only ten minutes.</p>

<p>"Do you think I will work for your master?" cried Mes-Bottes.
"He is the greatest tyrant in the kingdom. No, I should rather
suck my thumbs for a year. You won't stay there, old man! No, you
won't stay there three days, now I tell you!"</p>

<p>"Are you in earnest?" asked Coupeau uneasily.</p>

<p>"Yes, I am in earnest. You can't speak&mdash;you can't move.
Your nose is held close to the grindstone all the time. He
watches you every moment. If you drink a drop he says you are
tipsy and makes no end of a row!"</p>

<p>"Thanks for the warning. I will try this one day, and if the
master bothers me I will just tell him what I think of him and
turn on my heel and walk out."</p>

<p>Coupeau shook his comrade's hand and turned to depart, much to
the disgust of Mes-Bottes, who angrily asked if the master could
not wait five minutes. He could not go until he had taken a
drink. Lantier entered to join in, and Mes-Bottes stood there
with his hat on the back of his head, shabby, dirty and
staggering, ordering Father Colombe to pour out the glasses and
not to cheat.</p>

<p>At that moment Goujet and Lorilleux were seen going by.
Mes-Bottes shouted to them to come in, but they both
refused&mdash;Goujet saying he wanted nothing, and the other, as
he hugged a little box of gold chains close to his heart, that he
was in a hurry.</p>

<p>"Milksops!" muttered Mes-Bottes. "They had best pass their
lives in the corner by the fire!"</p>

<p>Returning to the counter, he renewed his attack on Father
Colombe, whom he accused of adulterating his liquors.</p>

<p>It was now bright daylight, and the proprietor of the
Assommoir began to extinguish the lights. Coupeau made excuses
for his brother-in-law, who, he said, could never drink; it was
not his fault, poor fellow! He approved, too, of Goujet,
declaring that it was a good thing never to be thirsty. Again he
made a move to depart and go to his work when Lantier, with his
dictatorial air, reminded him that he had not paid his score and
that he could not go off in that way, even if it were to his
duty.</p>

<p>"I am sick of the words 'work' and 'duty,'" muttered
Mes-Bottes.</p>

<p>They all paid for their drinks with the exception of
Bibi-la-Grillade, who stooped toward the ear of Father Colombe
and whispered a few words. The latter shook his head, whereupon
Mes-Bottes burst into a torrent of invectives, but Colombe stood
in impassive silence, and when there was a lull in the storm he
said:</p>

<p>"Let your friends pay for you then&mdash;that is a very simple
thing to do."</p>

<p>By this time Mes-Bottes was what is properly called howling
drunk, and as he staggered away from the counter he struck the
bag of tools which Coupeau had over his shoulder.</p>

<p>"You look like a peddler with his pack or a humpback. Put it
down!"</p>

<p>Coupeau hesitated a moment, and then slowly and deliberately,
as if he had arrived at a decision after mature deliberation, he
laid his bag on the ground.</p>

<p>"It is too late to go this morning. I will wait until after
breakfast now. I will tell him my wife was sick. Listen, Father
Colombe, I will leave my bag of tools under this bench and come
for them this afternoon."</p>

<p>Lantier assented to this arrangement. Of course work was a
good thing, but friends and good company were better; and the
four men stood, first on one foot and then on the other, for more
than an hour, and then they had another drink all round. After
that a game of billiards was proposed, and they went noisily down
the street to the nearest billiard room, which did not happen to
please the fastidious Lantier, who, however, soon recovered his
good humor under the effect of the admiration excited in the
minds of his friends by his play, which was really very
extraordinary.</p>

<p>When the hour arrived for breakfast Coupeau had an idea.</p>

<p>"Let us go and find Bec Sali. I know where he works. We will
make him breakfast with us."</p>

<p>The idea was received with applause. The party started forth.
A fine drizzling rain was now falling, but they were too warm
within to mind this light sprinkling on their shoulders.</p>

<p>Coupeau took them to a factory where his friend worked and at
the door gave two sous to a small boy to go up and find Bec Sali
and to tell him that his wife was very sick and had sent for
him.</p>

<p>Bec Sali quickly appeared, not in the least disturbed, as he
suspected a joke.</p>

<p>"Aha!" he said as he saw his friend. "I knew it!" They went to
a restaurant and ordered a famous repast of pigs' feet, and they
sat and sucked the bones and talked about their various
employers.</p>

<p>"Will you believe," said Bec Sali, "that mine has had the
brass to hang up a bell? Does he think we are slaves to run when
he rings it? Never was he so mistaken&mdash;"</p>

<p>"I am obliged to leave you!" said Coupeau, rising at last with
an important air. "I promised my wife to go to work today, and I
leave you with the greatest reluctance."</p>

<p>The others protested and entreated, but he seemed so decided
that they all accompanied him to the Assommoir to get his tools.
He pulled out the bag from under the bench and laid it at his
feet while they all took another drink. The clock struck one, and
Coupeau kicked his bag under the bench again. He would go
tomorrow to the factory; one day really did not make much
difference.</p>

<p>The rain had ceased, and one of the men proposed a little walk
on the boulevards to stretch their legs. The air seemed to
stupefy them, and they loitered along with their arms swinging at
their sides, without exchanging a word. When they reached the
wineshop on the corner of La Rue des Poissonnièrs they
turned in mechanically. Lantier led the way into a small room
divided from the public one by windows only. This room was much
affected by Lantier, who thought it more stylish by far than the
public one. He called for a newspaper, spread it out and examined
it with a heavy frown. Coupeau and Mes-Bottes played a game of
cards, while wine and glasses occupied the center of the
table.</p>

<p>"What is the news?" asked Bibi.</p>

<p>Lantier did not reply instantly, but presently, as the others
emptied their glasses, he began to read aloud an account of a
frightful murder, to which they listened with eager interest.
Then ensued a hot discussion and argument as to the probable
motives for the murder.</p>

<p>By this time the wine was exhausted, and they called for more.
About five all except Lantier were in a state of beastly
intoxication, and he found them so disgusting that, as usual, he
made his escape without his comrades noticing his defection.</p>

<p>Lantier walked about a little and then, when he felt all
right, went home and told Gervaise that her husband was with his
friends. Coupeau did not make his appearance for two days. Rumors
were brought in that he had been seen in one place and then in
another, and always alone. His comrades had apparently deserted
him. Gervaise shrugged her shoulders with a resigned air.</p>

<p>"Good heavens!" she said. "What a way to live!" She never
thought of hunting him up. Indeed, on the afternoon of the third
day, when she saw him through the window of a wineshop, she
turned back and would not pass the door. She sat up for him,
however, and listened for his step or the sound of his hand
fumbling at the lock.</p>

<p>The next morning he came in, only to begin the same thing at
night again. This went on for a week, and at last Gervaise went
to the Assommoir to make inquiries. Yes, he had been there a
number of times, but no one knew where he was just then. Gervaise
picked up the bag of tools and carried them home.</p>

<p>Lantier, seeing that Gervaise was out of spirits, proposed
that she should go with him to a cafe concert. She refused at
first, being in no mood for laughing; otherwise she would have
consented, for Lantier's proposal seemed to be prompted by the
purest friendliness. He seemed really sorry for her trouble and,
indeed, assumed an absolutely paternal air.</p>

<p>Coupeau had never stayed away like this before, and she
continually found herself going to the door and looking up and
down the street. She could not keep to her work but wandered
restlessly from place to place. Had Coupeau broken a limb? Had he
fallen into the water? She did not think she could care so very
much if he were killed, if this uncertainty were over, if she
only knew what she had to expect. But it was very trying to live
in this suspense.</p>

<p>Finally when the gas was lit and Lantier renewed his
proposition of the cafe she consented. After all, why should she
not go? Why should she refuse all pleasures because her husband
chose to behave in this disgraceful way? If he would not come in
she would go out.</p>

<p>They hurried through their dinner, and as she went out with
Lantier at eight o'clock Gervaise begged Nana and Mamma Coupeau
to go to bed early. The shop was closed, and she gave the key to
Mme Boche, telling her that if Coupeau came in it would be as
well to look out for the lights.</p>

<p>Lantier stood whistling while she gave these directions.
Gervaise wore her silk dress, and she smiled as they walked down
the street in alternate shadow and light from the
shopwindows.</p>

<p>The cafe concert was on the Boulevard de Rochechouart. It had
once been a cafe and had had a concert room built on of rough
planks.</p>

<p>Over the door was a row of glass globes brilliantly
illuminated. Long placards, nailed on wood, were standing quite
out in the street by the side of the gutter.</p>

<p>"Here we are!" said Lantier. "Mademoiselle Amanda makes her
debut tonight."</p>

<p>Bibi-la-Grillade was reading the placard. Bibi had a black
eye, as if he had been fighting.</p>

<p>"Hallo!" cried Lantier. "How are you? Where is Coupeau? Have
you lost him?"</p>

<p>"Yes, since yesterday. We had a little fight with a waiter at
Baquets. He wanted us to pay twice for what we had, and somehow
Coupeau and I got separated, and I have not seen him since."</p>

<p>And Bibi gave a great yawn. He was in a disgraceful state of
intoxication. He looked as if he had been rolling in the
gutter.</p>

<p>"And you know nothing of my husband?" asked Gervaise.</p>

<p>"No, nothing. I think, though, he went off with a
coachman."</p>

<p>Lantier and Gervaise passed a very agreeable evening at the
cafe concert, and when the doors were closed at eleven they went
home in a sauntering sort of fashion. They were in no hurry, and
the night was fair, though a little cool. Lantier hummed the air
which Amanda had sung, and Gervaise added the chorus. The room
had been excessively warm, and she had drunk several glasses of
wine.</p>

<p>She expressed a great deal of indignation at Mlle Amanda's
costume. How did she dare face all those men, dressed like that?
But her skin was beautiful, certainly, and she listened with
considerable curiosity to all that Lantier could tell her about
the woman.</p>

<p>"Everybody is asleep," said Gervaise after she had rung the
bell three times.</p>

<p>The door was finally opened, but there was no light. She
knocked at the door of the Boche quarters and asked for her
key.</p>

<p>The sleepy concierge muttered some unintelligible words, from
which Gervaise finally gathered that Coupeau had been brought in
by Poisson and that the key was in the door.</p>

<p>Gervaise stood aghast at the disgusting sight that met her
eyes as she entered the room where Coupeau lay wallowing on the
floor.</p>

<p>She shuddered and turned away. This sight annihilated every
ray of sentiment remaining in her heart.</p>

<p>"What am I to do?" she said piteously. "I can't stay
here!"</p>

<p>Lantier snatched her hand.</p>

<p>"Gervaise," he said, "listen to me."</p>

<p>But she understood him and drew hastily back.</p>

<p>"No, no! Leave me, Auguste. I can manage."</p>

<p>But Lantier would not obey her. He put his arm around her
waist and pointed to her husband as he lay snoring, with his
mouth wide open.</p>

<p>"Leave me!" said Gervaise, imploringly, and she pointed to the
room where her mother-in-law and Nana slept.</p>

<p>"You will wake them!" she said. "You would not shame me before
my child? Pray go!"</p>

<p>He said no more but slowly and softly kissed her on her ear,
as he had so often teased her by doing in those old days.
Gervaise shivered, and her blood was stirred to madness in her
veins.</p>

<p>"What does that beast care?" she thought. "It is his fault,"
she murmured; "all his fault. He sends me from his room!"</p>

<p>And as Lantier drew her toward his door Nana's face appeared
for a moment at the window which lit her little cabinet.</p>

<p>The mother did not see the child, who stood in her nightdress,
pale with sleep. She looked at her father as he lay and then
watched her mother disappear in Lantier's room. She was perfectly
grave, but in her eyes burned the sensual curiosity of premature
vice.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2>CHAPTER IX<br/>
CLOUDS IN THE HORIZON</h2>

<p>That winter Mamma Coupeau was very ill with an asthmatic
attack, which she always expected in the month of December.</p>

<p>The poor woman suffered much, and the depression of her
spirits was naturally very great. It must be confessed that there
was nothing very gay in the aspect of the room where she slept.
Between her bed and that of the little girl there was just room
for a chair. The paper hung in strips from the wall. Through a
round window near the ceiling came a dreary gray light. There was
little ventilation in the room, which made it especially unfit
for the old woman, who at night, when Nana was there and she
could hear her breathe, did not complain, but when left alone
during the day, moaned incessantly, rolling her head about on her
pillow.</p>

<p>"Ah," she said, "how unhappy I am! It is the same as a prison.
I wish I were dead!"</p>

<p>And as soon as a visitor came in&mdash;Virginie or Mme
Boche&mdash;she poured out her grievances. "I should not suffer
so much among strangers. I should like sometimes a cup of tisane,
but I can't get it; and Nana&mdash;that child whom I have raised
from the cradle&mdash;disappears in the morning and never shows
her face until night, when she sleeps right through and never
once asks me how I am or if she can do anything for me. It will
soon be over, and I really believe this clearstarcher would
smother me herself&mdash;if she were not afraid of the law!"</p>

<p>Gervaise, it is true, was not as gentle and sweet as she had
been. Everything seemed to be going wrong with her, and she had
lost heart and patience together. Mamma Coupeau had overheard her
saying that she was really a great burden. This naturally cut her
to the heart, and when she saw her eldest daughter, Mme Lerat,
she wept piteously and declared that she was being starved to
death, and when these complaints drew from her daughter's pocket
a little silver, she expended it in dainties.</p>

<p>She told the most preposterous tales to Mme Lerat about
Gervaise&mdash;of her new finery and of cakes and delicacies
eaten in the corner and many other things of infinitely more
consequence. Then in a little while she turned against the
Lorilleuxs and talked of them in the most bitter manner. At the
height of her illness it so happened that her two daughters met
one afternoon at her bedside. Their mother made a motion to them
to come closer. Then she went on to tell them, between paroxysms
of coughing, that her son came home dead drunk the night before
and that she was absolutely certain that Gervaise spent the night
in Lantier's room. "It is all the more disgusting," she added,
"because I am certain that Nana heard what was going on quite as
well as I did."</p>

<p>The two women did not appear either shocked or surprised.</p>

<p>"It is none of our business," said Mme Lorilleux. "If Coupeau
does not choose to take any notice of her conduct it is not for
us to do so."</p>

<p>All the neighborhood were soon informed of the condition of
things by her two sisters-in-law, who declared they entered her
doors only on their mother's account, who, poor thing, was
compelled to live amid these abominations.</p>

<p>Everyone accused Gervaise now of having perverted poor
Lantier. "Men will be men," they said; "surely you can't expect
them to turn a cold shoulder to women who throw themselves at
their heads. She has no possible excuse; she is a disgrace to the
whole street!"</p>

<p>The Lorilleuxs invited Nana to dinner that they might question
her, but as soon as they began the child looked absolutely
stupid, and they could extort nothing from her.</p>

<p>Amid this sudden and fierce indignation Gervaise
lived&mdash;indifferent, dull and stupid. At first she loathed
herself, and if Coupeau laid his hand on her she shivered and ran
away from him. But by degrees she became accustomed to it. Her
indolence had become excessive, and she only wished to be quiet
and comfortable.</p>

<p>After all, she asked herself, why should she care? If her
lover and her husband were satisfied, why should she not be too?
So the household went on much as usual to all appearance. In
reality, whenever Coupeau came in tipsy, she left and went to
Lantier's room to sleep. She was not led there by passion or
affection; it was simply that it was more comfortable. She was
very like a cat in her choice of soft, clean places.</p>

<p>Mamma Coupeau never dared to speak out openly to the
clearstarcher, but after a dispute she was unsparing in her hints
and allusions. The first time Gervaise fixed her eyes on her and
heard all she had to say in profound silence. Then without
seeming to speak of herself, she took occasion to say not long
afterward that when a woman was married to a man who was drinking
himself to death a woman was very much to be pitied and by no
means to blame if she looked for consolation elsewhere.</p>

<p>Another time, when taunted by the old woman, she went still
further and declared that Lantier was as much her husband as was
Coupeau&mdash;that he was the father of two of her children. She
talked a little twaddle about the laws of nature, and a shrewd
observer would have seen that she&mdash;parrotlike&mdash;was
repeating the words that some other person had put into her
mouth. Besides, what were her neighbors doing all about her? They
were not so extremely respectable that they had the right to
attack her. And then she took house after house and showed her
mother-in-law that while apparently so deaf to gossip she yet
knew all that was going on about her. Yes, she knew&mdash;and now
seemed to gloat over that which once had shocked and revolted
her.</p>

<p>"It is none of my business, I admit," she cried; "let each
person live as he pleases, according to his own light, and let
everybody else alone."</p>

<p>One day when Mamma Coupeau spoke out more clearly she said
with compressed lips:</p>

<p>"Now look here, you are flat on your back and you take
advantage of that fact. I have never said a word to you about
your own life, but I know it all the same&mdash;and it was
atrocious! That is all! I am not going into particulars, but
remember, you had best not sit in judgment on me!"</p>

<p>The old woman was nearly suffocated with rage and her
cough.</p>

<p>The next day Goujet came for his mother's wash while Gervaise
was out. Mamma Coupeau called him into her room and kept him for
an hour. She read the young man's heart; she knew that his
suspicions made him miserable. And in revenge for something that
had displeased her she told him the truth with many sighs and
tears, as if her daughter-in-law's infamous conduct was a bitter
blow to her.</p>

<p>When Goujet left her room he was deadly pale and looked ten
years older than when he went in. The old woman had, too, the
additional pleasure of telling Gervaise on her return that Mme
Goujet had sent word that her linen must be returned to her at
once, ironed or unironed. And she was so animated and
comparatively amiable that Gervaise scented the truth and knew
instinctively what she had done and what she was to expect with
Goujet. Pale and trembling, she piled the linen neatly in a
basket and set forth to see Mme Goujet. Years had passed since
she had paid her friends one penny. The debt still stood at four
hundred and twenty-five francs. Each time she took the money for
her washing she spoke of being pressed just at that time. It was
a great mortification for her.</p>

<p>Coupeau was, however, less scrupulous and said with a laugh
that if she kissed her friend occasionally in the corner it would
keep things straight and pay him well. Then Gervaise, with eyes
blazing with indignation, would ask if he really meant that. Had
he fallen so low? Nor should he speak of Goujet in that way in
her presence.</p>

<p>Every time she took home the linen of these former friends she
ascended the stairs with a sick heart.</p>

<p>"Ah, it is you, is it?" said Mme Goujet coldly as she opened
the door. Gervaise entered with some hesitation; she did not dare
attempt to excuse herself. She was no longer punctual to the hour
or the day&mdash;everything about her was becoming perfectly
disorderly.</p>

<p>"For one whole week," resumed the lace mender, "you have kept
me waiting. You have told me falsehood after falsehood. You have
sent your apprentice to tell me that there was an
accident&mdash;something had been spilled on the shirts, they
would come the next day, and so on. I have been unnecessarily
annoyed and worried, besides losing much time. There is no sense
in it! Now what have you brought home? Are the shirts here which
you have had for a month and the skirt which was missing last
week?"</p>

<p>"Yes," said Gervaise, almost inaudibly; "yes, the skirt is
here. Look at it!"</p>

<p>But Mme Goujet cried out in indignation.</p>

<p>That skirt did not belong to her, and she would not have it.
This was the crowning touch, if her things were to be changed in
this way. She did not like other people's things.</p>

<p>"And the shirts? Where are they? Lost, I suppose. Very well,
settle it as you please, but these shirts I must have tomorrow
morning!"</p>

<p>There was a long silence. Gervaise was much disturbed by
seeing that the door of Goujet's room was wide open. He was
there, she was sure, and listening to all these reproaches which
she knew to be deserved and to which she could not reply. She was
very quiet and submissive and laid the linen on the bed as
quickly as possible.</p>

<p>Mme Goujet began to examine the pieces.</p>

<p>"Well! Well!" she said. "No one can praise your washing
nowadays. There is not a piece here that is not dirtied by the
iron. Look at this shirt: it is scorched, and the buttons are
fairly torn off by the root. Everything comes back&mdash;that
comes at all, I should say&mdash;with the buttons off. Look at
that sack: the dirt is all in it. No, no, I can't pay for such
washing as this!"</p>

<p>She stopped talking&mdash;while she counted the pieces. Then
she exclaimed:</p>

<p>"Two pairs of stockings, six towels and one napkin are missing
from this week. You are laughing at me, it seems. Now, just
understand, I tell you to bring back all you have, ironed or not
ironed. If in an hour your woman is not here with the rest I have
done with you, Madame Coupeau!"</p>

<p>At this moment Goujet coughed. Gervaise started. How could she
bear being treated in this way before him? And she stood confused
and silent, waiting for the soiled clothes.</p>

<p>Mme Goujet had taken her place and her work by the window.</p>

<p>"And the linen?" said Gervaise timidly.</p>

<p>"Many thanks," said the old woman. "There is nothing this
week."</p>

<p>Gervaise turned pale; it was clear that Mme Goujet meant to
take away her custom from her. She sank into a chair. She made no
attempt at excuses; she only asked a question.</p>

<p>"Is Monsieur Goujet ill?"</p>

<p>"He is not well; at least he has just come in and is lying
down to rest a little."</p>

<p>Mme Goujet spoke very slowly, almost solemnly, her pale face
encircled by her white cap, and wearing, as usual, her plain
black dress.</p>

<p>And she explained that they were obliged to economize very
closely. In future she herself would do their washing. Of course
Gervaise must know that this would not be necessary had she and
her husband paid their debt to her son. But of course they would
submit; they would never think of going to law about it. While
she spoke of the debt her needle moved rapidly to and fro in the
delicate meshes of her work.</p>

<p>"But," continued Mme Goujet, "if you were to deny yourself a
little and be careful and prudent, you could soon discharge your
debt to us; you live too well; you spend too freely. Were you to
give us only ten francs each month&mdash;"</p>

<p>She was interrupted by her son, who called impatiently,
"Mother! Come here, will you?"</p>

<p>When she returned she changed the conversation. Her son had
undoubtedly begged her to say no more about this money to
Gervaise. In spite of her evident determination to avoid this
subject, she returned to it again in about ten minutes. She knew
from the beginning just what would happen. She had said so at the
time, and all had turned out precisely as she had prophesied. The
tinworker had drunk up the shop and had left his wife to bear the
load by herself. If her son had taken her advice he would never
have lent the money. His marriage had fallen through, and he had
lost his spirits. She grew very angry as she spoke and finally
accused Gervaise openly of having, with her husband, deliberately
conspired to cheat her simplehearted son.</p>

<p>"Many women," she exclaimed, "played the parts of hypocrites
and prudes for years and were found out at the last!"</p>

<p>"Mother! Mother!" called Goujet peremptorily.</p>

<p>She rose and when she returned said:</p>

<p>"Go in; he wants to see you."</p>

<p>Gervaise obeyed, leaving the door open behind her. She found
the room sweet and fresh looking, like that of a young girl, with
its simple pictures and white curtains.</p>

<p>Goujet, crushed by what he had heard from Mamma Coupeau, lay
at full length on the bed with pale face and haggard eyes.</p>

<p>"Listen!" he said. "You must not mind my mother's words; she
does not understand. You do not owe me anything."</p>

<p>He staggered to his feet and stood leaning against the bed and
looking at her.</p>

<p>"Are you ill?" she said nervously.</p>

<p>"No, not ill," he answered, "but sick at heart. Sick when I
remember what you said and see the truth. Leave me. I cannot bear
to look at you."</p>

<p>And he waved her away, not angrily, but with great decision.
She went out without a word, for she had nothing to say. In the
next room she took up her basket and stood still a moment; Mme
Goujet did not look up, but she said:</p>

<p>"Remember, I want my linen at once, and when that is all sent
back to me we will settle the account."</p>

<p>"Yes," answered Gervaise. And she closed the door, leaving
behind her all that sweet odor and cleanliness on which she had
once placed so high a value. She returned to the shop with her
head bowed down and looking neither to the right nor the
left.</p>

<p>Mother Coupeau was sitting by the fire, having left her bed
for the first time. Gervaise said nothing to her&mdash;not a word
of reproach or congratulation She felt deadly tired; all her
bones ached, as if she had been beaten. She thought life very
hard and wished that it were over for her.</p>

<p>Gervaise soon grew to care for nothing but her three meals per
day. The shop ran itself; one by one her customers left her.
Gervaise shrugged her shoulders half indifferently, half
insolently; everybody could leave her, she said: she could always
get work. But she was mistaken, and soon it became necessary for
her to dismiss Mme Putois, keeping no assistant except Augustine,
who seemed to grow more and more stupid as time went on. Ruin was
fast approaching. Naturally, as indolence and poverty increased,
so did lack of cleanliness. No one would ever have known that
pretty blue shop in which Gervaise had formerly taken such pride.
The windows were unwashed and covered with the mud scattered by
the passing carriages. Within it was still more forlorn: the
dampness of the steaming linen had ruined the paper; everything
was covered with dust; the stove, which once had been kept so
bright, was broken and battered. The long ironing table was
covered with wine stains and grease, looking as if it had served
a whole garrison. The atmosphere was loaded with a smell of
cooking and of sour starch. But Gervaise was unconscious of it.
She did not notice the torn and untidy paper and, having ceased
to pay any attention to personal cleanliness, was hardly likely
to spend her time in scrubbing the greasy floors. She allowed the
dust to accumulate over everything and never lifted a finger to
remove it. Her own comfort and tranquillity were now her first
considerations.</p>

<p>Her debts were increasing, but they had ceased to give her any
uneasiness. She was no longer honest or straightforward. She did
not care whether she ever paid or not, so long as she got what
she wanted. When one shop refused her more credit she opened an
account next door. She owed something in every shop in the whole
<i>Quartier</i>. She dared not pass the grocer or the baker in
her own street and was compelled to make a lengthy circuit each
time she went out. The tradespeople muttered and grumbled, and
some went so far as to call her a thief and a swindler.</p>

<p>One evening the man who had sold her the furniture for
Lantier's room came in with ugly threats.</p>

<p>Such scenes were unquestionably disagreeable. She trembled for
an hour after them, but they never took away her appetite.</p>

<p>It was very stupid of these people, after all, she said to
Lantier. How could she pay them if she had no money? And where
could she get money? She closed her eyes to the inevitable and
would not think of the future. Mamma Coupeau was well again, but
the household had been disorganized for more than a year. In
summer there was more work brought to the shop&mdash;white skirts
and cambric dresses. There were ups and downs, therefore: days
when there was nothing in the house for supper and others when
the table was loaded.</p>

<p>Mamma Coupeau was seen almost daily, going out with a bundle
under her apron and returning without it and with a radiant face,
for the old woman liked the excitement of going to the
Mont-de-Piété.</p>

<p>Gervaise was gradually emptying the house&mdash;linen and
clothes, tools and furniture. In the beginning she took advantage
of a good week to take out what she had pawned the week before,
but after a while she ceased to do that and sold her tickets.
There was only one thing which cost her a pang, and that was
selling her clock. She had sworn she would not touch it, not
unless she was dying of hunger, and when at last she saw her
mother-in-law carry it away she dropped into a chair and wept
like a baby. But when the old woman came back with twenty-five
francs and she found she had five francs more than was demanded
by the pressing debt which had caused her to make the sacrifice,
she was consoled and sent out at once for four sous' worth of
brandy. When these two women were on good terms they often drank
a glass together, sitting at the corner of the ironing table.</p>

<p>Mamma Coupeau had a wonderful talent for bringing a glass in
the pocket of her apron without spilling a drop. She did not care
to have the neighbors know, but, in good truth, the neighbors
knew very well and laughed and sneered as the old woman went in
and out.</p>

<p>This, as was natural and right, increased the prejudice
against Gervaise. Everyone said that things could not go on much
longer; the end was near.</p>

<p>Amid all this ruin Coupeau thrived surprisingly. Bad liquor
seemed to affect him agreeably. His appetite was good in spite of
the amount he drank, and he was growing stout. Lantier, however,
shook his head, declaring that it was not honest flesh and that
he was bloated. But Coupeau drank all the more after this
statement and was rarely or ever sober. There began to be a
strange bluish tone in his complexion. His spirits never flagged.
He laughed at his wife when she told him of her embarrassments.
What did he care, so long as she provided him with food to eat?
And the longer he was idle, the more exacting he became in regard
to this food.</p>

<p>He was ignorant of his wife's infidelity, at least, so all his
friends declared. They believed, moreover, that were he to
discover it there would be great trouble. But Mme Lerat, his own
sister, shook her head doubtfully, averring that she was not so
sure of his ignorance.</p>

<p>Lantier was also in good health and spirits, neither too stout
nor too thin. He wished to remain just where he was, for he was
thoroughly well satisfied with himself, and this made him
critical in regard to his food, as he had made a study of the
things he should eat and those he should avoid for the
preservation of his figure. Even when there was not a cent he
asked for eggs and cutlets: nourishing and light things were what
he required, he said. He ruled Gervaise with a rod of iron,
grumbled and found fault far more than Coupeau ever did. It was a
house with two masters, one of whom, cleverer by far than the
other, took the best of everything. He skimmed the Coupeaus, as
it were, and kept all the cream for himself. He was fond of Nana
because he liked girls better than boys. He troubled himself
little about Etienne.</p>

<p>When people came and asked for Coupeau it was Lantier who
appeared in his shirt sleeves with the air of the man of the
house who is needlessly disturbed. He answered for Coupeau, said
it was one and the same thing.</p>

<p>Gervaise did not find this life always smooth and agreeable.
She had no reason to complain of her health. She had become very
stout. But it was hard work to provide for and please these two
men. When they came in, furious and out of temper, it was on her
that they wreaked their rage. Coupeau abused her frightfully and
called her by the coarsest epithets. Lantier, on the contrary,
was more select in his phraseology, but his words cut her quite
as deeply. Fortunately people become accustomed to almost
everything in this world, and Gervaise soon ceased to care for
the reproaches and injustice of these two men. She even preferred
to have them out of temper with her, for then they let her alone
in some degree; but when they were in a good humor they were all
the time at her heels, and she could not find a leisure moment
even to iron a cap, so constant were the demands they made upon
her. They wanted her to do this and do that, to cook little
dishes for them and wait upon them by inches.</p>

<p>One night she dreamed she was at the bottom of a well. Coupeau
was pushing her down with his fists, and Lantier was tickling her
to make her jump out quicker. And this, she thought, was a very
fair picture of her life! She said that the people of the
<i>Quartier</i> were very unjust, after all, when they reproached
her for the way of life into which she had fallen. It was not her
fault. It was not she who had done it, and a little shiver ran
over her as she reflected that perhaps the worst was not yet.</p>

<p>The utter deterioration of her nature was shown by the fact
that she detested neither her husband nor Lantier. In a play at
the Gaite she had seen a woman hate her husband and poison him
for the sake of her lover. This she thought very strange and
unnatural. Why could the three not have lived together peaceably?
It would have been much more reasonable!</p>

<p>In spite of her debts, in spite of the shifts to which her
increasing poverty condemned her, Gervaise would have considered
herself quite well off, but for the exacting selfishness of
Lantier and Coupeau.</p>

<p>Toward autumn Lantier became more and more disgusted, declared
he had nothing to live on but potato parings and that his health
was suffering. He was enraged at seeing the house so thoroughly
cleared out, and he felt that the day was not far off when he
must take his hat and depart. He had become accustomed to his
den, and he hated to leave it. He was thoroughly provoked that
the extravagant habits of Gervaise necessitated this sacrifice on
his part. Why could she not have shown more sense? He was sure he
didn't know what would become of them. Could they have struggled
on six months longer, he could have concluded an affair which
would have enabled him to support the whole family in
comfort.</p>

<p>One day it came to pass that there was not a mouthful in the
house, not even a radish. Lantier sat by the stove in somber
discontent. Finally he started up and went to call on the
Poissons, to whom he suddenly became friendly to a degree. He no
longer taunted the police officer but condescended to admit that
the emperor was a good fellow after all. He showed himself
especially civil to Virginie, whom he considered a clever woman
and well able to steer her bark through stormy seas.</p>

<p>Virginie one day happened to say in his presence that she
should like to establish herself in some business. He approved
the plan and paid her a succession of adroit compliments on her
capabilities and cited the example of several women he knew who
had made or were making their fortunes in this way.</p>

<p>Virginie had the money, an inheritance from an aunt, but she
hesitated, for she did not wish to leave the <i>Quartier</i> and
she did not know of any shop she could have. Then Lantier led her
into a corner and whispered to her for ten minutes; he seemed to
be persuading her to something. They continued to talk together
in this way at intervals for several days, seeming to have some
secret understanding.</p>

<p>Lantier all this time was fretting and scolding at the
Coupeaus, asking Gervaise what on earth she intended to do,
begging her to look things fairly in the face. She owed five or
six hundred francs to the tradespeople about her. She was
behindhand with her rent, and Marescot, the landlord, threatened
to turn her out if they did not pay before the first of
January.</p>

<p>The Mont-de-Piété had taken everything; there
was literally nothing but the nails in the walls left. What did
she mean to do?</p>

<p>Gervaise listened to all this at first listlessly, but she
grew angry at last and cried out:</p>

<p>"Look here! I will go away tomorrow and leave the key in the
door. I had rather sleep in the gutter than live in this
way!"</p>

<p>"And I can't say that it would not be a wise thing for you to
do!" answered Lantier insidiously. "I might possibly assist you
to find someone to take the lease off your hands whenever you
really conclude to leave the shop."</p>

<p>"I am ready to leave it at once!" cried Gervaise violently. "I
am sick and tired of it."</p>

<p>Then Lantier became serious and businesslike. He spoke openly
of Virginie, who, he said, was looking for a shop; in fact, he
now remembered having heard her say that she would like just such
a one as this.</p>

<p>But Gervaise shrank back and grew strangely calm at this name
of Virginie.</p>

<p>She would see, she said; on the whole, she must have time to
think. People said a great many things when they were angry,
which on reflection were found not to be advisable.</p>

<p>Lantier rang the changes on this subject for a week, but
Gervaise said she had decided to employ some woman and go to work
again, and if she were not able to get back her old customers she
could try for new ones. She said this merely to show Lantier that
she was not so utterly downcast and crushed as he had seemed to
take for granted was the case.</p>

<p>He was reckless enough to drop the name of Virginie once more,
and she turned upon him in a rage.</p>

<p>"No, no, never!" She had always distrusted Virginie, and if
she wanted the shop it was only to humiliate her. Any other woman
might have it, but not this hypocrite, who had been waiting for
years to gloat over her downfall. No, she understood now only too
well the meaning of the yellow sparks in her cat's eyes. It was
clear to her that Virginie had never forgotten the scene in the
lavatory, and if she did not look out there would be a repetition
of it.</p>

<p>Lantier stood aghast at this anger and this torrent of words,
but presently he plucked up courage and bade her hold her tongue
and told her she should not talk of his friends in that way. As
for himself, he was sick and tired of other people's affairs; in
future he would let them all take care of themselves, without a
word of counsel from him.</p>

<p>January arrived, cold and damp. Mamma Coupeau took to her bed
with a violent cold which she expected each year at this time.
But those about her said she would never leave the house again,
except feet first.</p>

<p>Her children had learned to look forward to her death as a
happy deliverance for all. The physician who came once was not
sent for again. A little tisane was given her from time to time
that she might not feel herself utterly neglected. She was just
alive; that was all. It now became a mere question of time with
her, but her brain was clear still, and in the expression of her
eyes there were many things to be read&mdash;sorrow at seeing no
sorrow in those she left behind her and anger against Nana, who
was utterly indifferent to her.</p>

<p>One Monday evening Coupeau came in as tipsy as usual and threw
himself on the bed, all dressed. Gervaise intended to remain with
her mother-in-law part of the night, but Nana was very brave and
said she would hear if her grandmother moved and wanted
anything.</p>

<p>About half-past three Gervaise woke with a start; it seemed to
her that a cold blast had swept through the room. Her candle had
burned down, and she nastily wrapped a shawl around her with
trembling hands and hurried into the next room. Nana was sleeping
quietly, and her grandmother was dead in the bed at her side.</p>

<p>Gervaise went to Lantier and waked him.</p>

<p>"She is dead," she said.</p>

<p>"Well, what of it?" he muttered, half asleep. "Why don't you
go to sleep?"</p>

<p>She turned away in silence while he grumbled at her coming to
disturb him by the intelligence of a death in the house.</p>

<p>Gervaise dressed herself, not without tears, for she really
loved the cross old woman whose son lay in the heavy slumbers of
intoxication.</p>

<p>When she went back to the room she found Nana sitting up and
rubbing her eyes. The child realized what had come to pass and
trembled nervously in the face of this death of which she had
thought much in the last two days, as of something which was
hidden from children.</p>

<p>"Get up!" said her mother in a low voice. "I do not wish you
to stay here."</p>

<p>The child slipped from her bed slowly and regretfully, with
her eyes fixed on the dead body of her grandmother.</p>

<p>Gervaise did not know what to do with her or where to send
her. At this moment Lantier appeared at the door. He had dressed
himself, impelled by a little shame at his own conduct.</p>

<p>"Let the child go into my room," he said, "and I will help
you."</p>

<p>Nana looked first at her mother and then at Lantier and then
trotted with her little bare feet into the next room and slipped
into the bed that was still warm.</p>

<p>She lay there wide awake with blazing cheeks and eyes and
seemed to be absorbed in thought.</p>

<p>While Lantier and Gervaise were silently occupied with the
dead Coupeau lay and snored.</p>

<p>Gervaise hunted in a bureau to find a little crucifix which
she had brought from Plassans, when she suddenly remembered that
Mamma Coupeau had sold it. They each took a glass of wine and sat
by the stove until daybreak.</p>

<p>About seven o'clock Coupeau woke. When he heard what had
happened he declared they were jesting. But when he saw the body
he fell on his knees and wept like a baby. Gervaise was touched
by these tears and found her heart softer toward her husband than
it had been for many a long year.</p>

<p>"Courage, old friend!" said Lantier, pouring out a glass of
wine as he spoke.</p>

<p>Coupeau took some wine, but he continued to weep, and Lantier
went off under pretext of informing the family, but he did not
hurry. He walked along slowly, smoking a cigar, and after he had
been to Mme Lerat's he stopped in at a <i>crèmerie</i> to
take a cup of coffee, and there he sat for an hour or more in
deep thought.</p>

<p>By nine o'clock the family were assembled in the shop, whose
shutters had not been taken down. Lorilleux only remained for a
few moments and then went back to his shop. Mme Lorilleux shed a
few tears and then sent Nana to buy a pound of candles.</p>

<p>"How like Gervaise!" she murmured. "She can do nothing in a
proper way!"</p>

<p>Mme Lerat went about among the neighbors to borrow a crucifix.
She brought one so large that when it was laid on the breast of
Mamma Coupeau the weight seemed to crush her.</p>

<p>Then someone said something about holy water, so Nana was sent
to the church with a bottle. The room assumed a new aspect. On a
small table burned a candle, near it a glass of holy water in
which was a branch of box.</p>

<p>"Everything is in order," murmured the sisters; "people can
come now as soon as they please."</p>

<p>Lantier made his appearance about eleven. He had been to make
inquiries in regard to funeral expenses.</p>

<p>"The coffin," he said, "is twelve francs, and if you want a
Mass, ten francs more. A hearse is paid for according to its
ornaments."</p>

<p>"You must remember," said Mme Lorilleux with compressed lips,
"that Mamma must be buried according to her purse."</p>

<p>"Precisely!" answered Lantier. "I only tell you this as your
guide. Decide what you want, and after breakfast I will go and
attend to it all."</p>

<p>He spoke in a low voice, oppressed by the presence of the
dead. The children were laughing in the courtyard and Nana
singing loudly.</p>

<p>Gervaise said gently:</p>

<p>"We are not rich, to be sure, but we wish to do what she would
have liked. If Mamma Coupeau has left us nothing it was not her
fault and no reason why we should bury her as if she were a dog.
No, there must be a Mass and a hearse."</p>

<p>"And who will pay for it?" asked Mme Lorilleux. "We can't, for
we lost much money last week, and I am quite sure you would find
it hard work!"</p>

<p>Coupeau, when he was consulted, shrugged his shoulders with a
gesture of profound indifference. Mme Lerat said she would pay
her share.</p>

<p>"There are three of us," said Gervaise after a long
calculation; "if we each pay thirty francs we can do it with
decency."</p>

<p>But Mme Lorilleux burst out furiously:</p>

<p>"I will never consent to such folly. It is not that I care for
the money, but I disapprove of the ostentation. You can do as you
please."</p>

<p>"Very well," replied Gervaise, "I will. I have taken care of
your mother while she was living; I can bury her now that she is
dead."</p>

<p>Then Mme Lorilleux fell to crying, and Lantier had great
trouble in preventing her from going away at once, and the
quarrel grew so violent that Mme Lerat hastily closed the door of
the room where the dead woman lay, as if she feared the noise
would waken her. The children's voices rose shrill in the air
with Nana's perpetual "Tra-la-la" above all the rest.</p>

<p>"Heavens, how wearisome those children are with their songs,"
said Lantier. "Tell them to be quiet, and make Nana come in and
sit down."</p>

<p>Gervaise obeyed these dictatorial orders while her
sisters-in-law went home to breakfast, while the Coupeaus tried
to eat, but they were made uncomfortable by the presence of death
in their crowded quarters. The details of their daily life were
disarranged.</p>

<p>Gervaise went to Goujet and borrowed sixty francs, which,
added to thirty from Mme Lerat, would pay the expenses of the
funeral. In the afternoon several persons came in and looked at
the dead woman, crossing themselves as they did so and shaking
holy water over the body with the branch of box. They then took
their seats in the shop and talked of the poor thing and of her
many virtues. One said she had talked with her only three days
before, and another asked if it were not possible it was a
trance.</p>

<p>By evening the Coupeaus felt it was more than they could bear.
It was a mistake to keep a body so long. One has, after all, only
so many tears to shed, and that done, grief turns to worry. Mamma
Coupeau&mdash;stiff and cold&mdash;was a terrible weight on them
all. They gradually lost the sense of oppression, however, and
spoke louder.</p>

<p>After a while M. Marescot appeared. He went to the inner room
and knelt at the side of the corpse. He was very religious, they
saw. He made a sign of the cross in the air and dipped the branch
into the holy water and sprinkled the body. M. Marescot, having
finished his devotions, passed out into the shop and said to
Coupeau:</p>

<p>"I came for the two quarters that are due. Have you got the
money for me?"</p>

<p>"No sir, not entirely," said Gervaise, coming forward,
excessively annoyed at this scene taking place in the presence of
her sisters-in-law. "You see, this trouble came upon
us&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Undoubtedly," answered her landlord; "but we all of us have
our troubles. I cannot wait any longer. I really must have the
money. If I am not paid by tomorrow I shall most assuredly take
immediate measures to turn you out."</p>

<p>Gervaise clasped her hands imploringly, but he shook his head,
saying that discussion was useless; besides, just then it would
be a disrespect to the dead.</p>

<p>"A thousand pardons!" he said as he went out. "But remember
that I must have the money tomorrow."</p>

<p>And as he passed the open door of the lighted room he saluted
the corpse with another genuflection.</p>

<p>After he had gone the ladies gathered around the stove, where
a great pot of coffee stood, enough to keep them all awake for
the whole night. The Poissons arrived about eight o'clock; then
Lantier, carefully watching Gervaise, began to speak of the
disgraceful act committed by the landlord in coming to a house to
collect money at such a time.</p>

<p>"He is a thorough hypocrite," continued Lantier, "and were I
in Madame Coupeau's place, I would walk off and leave his house
on his hands."</p>

<p>Gervaise heard but did not seem to heed.</p>

<p>The Lorilleuxs, delighted at the idea that she would lose her
shop, declared that Lantier's idea was an excellent one. They
gave Coupeau a push and repeated it to him.</p>

<p>Gervaise seemed to be disposed to yield, and then Virginie
spoke in the blandest of tones.</p>

<p>"I will take the lease off your hands," she said, "and will
arrange the back rent with your landlord."</p>

<p>"No, no! Thank you," cried Gervaise, shaking off the lethargy
in which she had been wrapped. "I can manage this matter and I
can work. No, no, I say."</p>

<p>Lantier interposed and said soothingly:</p>

<p>"Never mind! We will talk of it another time&mdash;tomorrow,
possibly."</p>

<p>The family were to sit up all night. Nana cried vociferously
when she was sent into the Boche quarters to sleep; the Poissons
remained until midnight. Virginia began to talk of the country:
she would like to be buried under a tree with flowers and grass
on her grave. Mme Lerat said that in her wardrobe&mdash;folded up
in lavender&mdash;was the linen sheet in which her body was to be
wrapped.</p>

<p>When the Poissons went away Lantier accompanied them in order,
he said, to leave his bed for the ladies, who could take turns in
sleeping there. But the ladies preferred to remain together about
the stove.</p>

<p>Mme Lorilleux said she had no black dress, and it was too bad
that she must buy one, for they were sadly pinched just at this
time. And she asked Gervaise if she was sure that her mother had
not a black skirt which would do, one that had been given her on
her birthday. Gervaise went for the skirt. Yes, it would do if it
were taken in at the waist.</p>

<p>Then Mme Lorilleux looked at the bed and the wardrobe and
asked if there was nothing else belonging to her mother.</p>

<p>Here Mme Lerat interfered. The Coupeaus, she said, had taken
care of her mother, and they were entitled to all the trifles she
had left. The night seemed endless. They drank coffee and went by
turns to look at the body, lying silent and calm under the
flickering light of the candle.</p>

<p>The interment was to take place at half-past ten, but Gervaise
would gladly have given a hundred francs, if she had had them, to
anyone who would have taken Mamma Coupeau away three hours before
the time fixed.</p>

<p>"Ah," she said to herself, "it is no use to disguise the fact:
people are very much in the way after they are dead, no matter
how much you have loved them!"</p>

<p>Father Bazonge, who was never known to be sober, appeared with
the coffin and the pall. When he saw Gervaise he stood with his
eyes starting from his head.</p>

<p>"I beg you pardon," he said, "but I thought it was for you,"
and he was turning to go away.</p>

<p>"Leave the coffin!" cried Gervaise, growing very pale. Bazonge
began to apologize:</p>

<p>"I heard them talking yesterday, but I did not pay much
attention. I congratulate you that you are still alive. Though
why I do, I do not know, for life is not such a very agreeable
thing."</p>

<p>Gervaise listened with a shiver of horror and a morbid dread
that he would take her away and shut her up in his box and bury
her. She had once heard him say that he knew a woman who would be
only too thankful if he would do exactly that.</p>

<p>"He is horribly drunk," she murmured in a tone of mingled
disgust and terror.</p>

<p>"It will come for you another time," he said with a laugh;
"you have only to make me a little sign. I am a great consolation
to women sometimes, and you need not sneer at poor Father
Bazonge, for he has held many a fine lady in his arms, and they
made no complaint when he laid them down to sleep in the shade of
the evergreens."</p>

<p>"Do hold your tongue," said Lorilleux; "this is no time for
such talk. Be off with you!"</p>

<p>The clock struck ten. The friends and neighbors had assembled
in the shop while the family were in the back room, nervous and
feverish with suspense.</p>

<p>Four men appeared&mdash;the undertaker, Bazonge and his three
assistants placed the body in the coffin. Bazonge held the screws
in his mouth and waited for the family to take their last
farewell.</p>

<p>Then Coupeau, his two sisters and Gervaise kissed their
mother, and their tears fell fast on her cold face. The lid was
put on and fastened down.</p>

<p>The hearse was at the door to the great edification of the
tradespeople of the neighborhood, who said under their breath
that the Coupeaus had best pay their debts.</p>

<p>"It is shameful," Gervaise was saying at the same moment,
speaking of the Lorilleuxs. "These people have not even brought a
bouquet of violets for their mother."</p>

<p>It was true they had come empty-handed, while Mme Lerat had
brought a wreath of artificial flowers which was laid on the
bier.</p>

<p>Coupeau and Lorilleux, with their hats in their hands, walked
at the head of the procession of men. After them followed the
ladies, headed by Mme Lorilleux in her black skirt, wrenched from
the dead, her sister trying to cover a purple dress with a large
black shawl.</p>

<p>Gervaise had lingered behind to close the shop and give Nana
into the charge of Mme Boche and then ran to overtake the
procession, while the little girl stood with the concierge,
profoundly interested in seeing her grandmother carried in that
beautiful carriage.</p>

<p>Just as Gervaise joined the procession Goujet came up a side
street and saluted her with a slight bow and with a faint sweet
smile. The tears rushed to her eyes. She did not weep for Mamma
Coupeau but rather for herself, but her sisters-in-law looked at
her as if she were the greatest hypocrite in the world.</p>

<p>At the church the ceremony was of short duration. The Mass
dragged a little because the priest was very old.</p>

<p>The cemetery was not far off, and the cortege soon reached it.
A priest came out of a house near by and shivered as he saw his
breath rise with each <i>De Profundis</i> he uttered.</p>

<p>The coffin was lowered, and as the frozen earth fell upon it
more tears were shed, accompanied, however, by sigh of
relief.</p>

<p>The procession dispersed outside the gates of the cemetery,
and at the very first cabaret Coupeau turned in, leaving Gervaise
alone on the sidewalk. She beckoned to Goujet, who was turning
the corner.</p>

<p>"I want to speak to you," she said timidly. "I want to tell
you how ashamed I am for coming to you again to borrow money, but
I was at my wit's end."</p>

<p>"I am always glad to be of use to you," answered the
blacksmith. "But pray never allude to the matter before my
mother, for I do not wish to trouble her. She and I think
differently on many subjects."</p>

<p>She looked at him sadly and earnestly. Through her mind
flitted a vague regret that she had not done as he desired, that
she had not gone away with him somewhere. Then a vile temptation
assailed her. She trembled.</p>

<p>"You are not angry now?" she said entreatingly.</p>

<p>"No, not angry, but still heartsick. All is over between us
now and forever." And he walked off with long strides, leaving
Gervaise stunned by his words.</p>

<p>"All is over between us!" she kept saying to herself. "And
what more is there for me then in life?"</p>

<p>She sat down in her empty, desolate room and drank a large
tumbler of wine. When the others came in she looked up suddenly
and said to Virginie gently:</p>

<p>"If you want the shop, take it!"</p>

<p>Virginie and her husband jumped at this and sent for the
concierge, who consented to the arrangement on condition that the
new tenants would become security for the two quarters then
due.</p>

<p>This was agreed upon. The Coupeaus would take a room on the
sixth floor near the Lorilleuxs. Lantier said politely that if it
would not be disagreeable to the Poissons he should like much to
retain his present quarters.</p>

<p>The policeman bowed stiffly but with every intention of being
cordial and said he decidedly approved of the idea.</p>

<p>Then Lantier withdrew from the discussion entirely, watching
Gervaise and Virginie out of the corners of his eyes.</p>

<p>That evening when Gervaise was alone again she felt utterly
exhausted. The place looked twice its usual size. It seemed to
her that in leaving Mamma Coupeau in the quiet cemetery she had
also left much that was precious to her, a portion of her own
life, her pride in her shop, her hopes and her energy. These were
not all, either, that she had buried that day. Her heart was as
bare and empty as her walls and her home. She was too weary to
try and analyze her sensations but moved about as if in a
dream.</p>

<p>At ten o'clock, when Nana was undressed, she wept, begging
that she might be allowed to sleep in her grandmother's bed. Her
mother vaguely wondered that the child was not afraid and allowed
her to do as she pleased.</p>

<p>Nana was not timid by nature, and only her curiosity, not her
fears, had been excited by the events of the last three days, and
she curled herself up with delight in the soft, warm feather
bed.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2>CHAPTER X<br/>
DISASTERS AND CHANGES</h2>

<p>The new lodging of the Coupeaus was next that of the Bijards.
Almost opposite their door was a closet under the stairs which
went up to the roof&mdash;a mere hole without light or
ventilation, where Father Bru slept.</p>

<p>A chamber and a small room, about as large as one's hand, were
all the Coupeaus had now. Nana's little bed stood in the small
room, the door of which had to be left open at night, lest the
child should stifle.</p>

<p>When it came to the final move Gervaise felt that she could
not separate from the commode which she had spent so much time in
polishing when first married and insisted on its going to their
new quarters, where it was much in the way and stopped up half
the window, and when Gervaise wished to look out into the court
she had not room for her elbows.</p>

<p>The first few days she spent in tears. She felt smothered and
cramped; after having had so much room to move about in it seemed
to her that she was smothering. It was only at the window she
could breathe. The courtyard was not a place calculated to
inspire cheerful thoughts. Opposite her was the window which
years before had elicited her admiration, where every successive
summer scarlet beans had grown to a fabulous height on slender
strings. Her room was on the shady side, and a pot of mignonette
would die in a week on her sill.</p>

<p>No, life had not been what she hoped, and it was all very hard
to bear.</p>

<p>Instead of flowers to solace her declining years she would
have but thorns. One day as she was looking down into the court
she had the strangest feeling imaginable. She seemed to see
herself standing just near the loge of the concierge, looking up
at the house and examining it for the first time.</p>

<p>This glimpse of the past made her feel faint. It was at least
thirteen years since she had first seen this huge
building&mdash;this world within a world. The court had not
changed. The facade was simply more dingy. The same clothes
seemed to be hanging at the windows to dry. Below there were the
shavings from the cabinetmaker's shop, and the gutter glittered
with blue water, as blue and soft in tone as the water she
remembered.</p>

<p>But she&mdash;alas, how changed was she! She no longer looked
up to the sky. She was no longer hopeful, courageous and
ambitious. She was living under the very roof in crowded
discomfort, where never a ray of sunshine could reach her, and
her tears fell fast in utter discouragement.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, when Gervaise became accustomed to her new
surroundings she grew more content. The pieces of furniture she
had sold to Virginie had facilitated her installation. When the
fine weather came Coupeau had an opportunity of going into the
country to work. He went and lived three months without
drinking&mdash;cured for the time being by the fresh, pure air.
It does a man sometimes an infinite deal of good to be taken away
from all his old haunts and from Parisian streets, which always
seem to exhale a smell of brandy and of wine.</p>

<p>He came back as fresh as a rose, and he brought four hundred
francs with which he paid the Poissons the amount for which they
had become security as well as several other small but pressing
debts. Gervaise had now two or three streets open to her again,
which for some time she had not dared to enter.</p>

<p>She now went out to iron by the day and had gone back to her
old mistress, Mme Fauconnier, who was a kindhearted creature and
ready to do anything for anyone who flattered her adroitly.</p>

<p>With diligence and economy Gervaise could have managed to live
comfortably and pay all her debts, but this prospect did not
charm her particularly. She suffered acutely in seeing the
Poissons in her old shop. She was by no means of a jealous or
envious disposition, but it was not agreeable to her to hear the
admiration expressed for her successors by her husband's sisters.
To hear them one would suppose that never had so beautiful a shop
been seen before. They spoke of the filthy condition of the place
when Virginie moved in&mdash;who had paid, they declared, thirty
francs for cleaning it.</p>

<p>Virginie, after some hesitation, had decided on a small stock
of groceries&mdash;sugar, tea and coffee, also bonbons and
chocolate. Lantier had advised these because he said the profit
on them was immense. The shop was repainted, and shelves and
cases were put in, and a counter with scales such as are seen at
confectioners'. The little inheritance that Poisson held in
reserve was seriously encroached upon. But Virginie was
triumphant, for she had her way, and the Lorilleuxs did not spare
Gervaise the description of a case or a jar.</p>

<p>It was said in the street that Lantier had deserted Gervaise,
that she gave him no peace running after him, but this was not
true, for he went and came to her apartment as he pleased.
Scandal was connecting his name and Virginie's. They said
Virginie had taken the clearstarcher's lover as well as her shop!
The Lorilleuxs talked of nothing when Gervaise was present but
Lantier, Virginie and the shop. Fortunately Gervaise was not
inclined to jealousy, and Lantier's infidelities had hitherto
left her undisturbed, but she did not accept this new affair with
equal tranquillity. She colored or turned pale as she heard these
allusions, but she would not allow a word to pass her lips, as
she was fully determined never to gratify her enemies by allowing
them to see her discomfiture; but a dispute was heard by the
neighbors about this time between herself and Lantier, who went
angrily away and was not seen by anyone in the Coupeau quarters
for more than a fortnight.</p>

<p>Coupeau behaved very oddly. This blind and complacent husband,
who had closed his eyes to all that was going on at home, was
filled with virtuous indignation at Lantier's indifference. Then
Coupeau went so far as to tease Gervaise in regard to this
desertion of her lovers. She had had bad luck, he said, with
hatters and blacksmiths&mdash;why did she not try a mason?</p>

<p>He said this as if it were a joke, but Gervaise had a firm
conviction that he was in deadly earnest. A man who is tipsy from
one year's end to the next is not apt to be fastidious, and there
are husbands who at twenty are very jealous and at thirty have
grown very complacent under the influence of constant
tippling.</p>

<p>Lantier preserved an attitude of calm indifference. He kept
the peace between the Poissons and the Coupeaus. Thanks to him,
Virginie and Gervaise affected for each other the most tender
regard. He ruled the brunette as he had ruled the blonde, and he
would swallow her shop as he had that of Gervaise.</p>

<p>It was in June of this year that Nana partook of her first
Communion. She was about thirteen, slender and tall as an
asparagus plant, and her air and manner were the height of
impertinence and audacity.</p>

<p>She had been sent away from the catechism class the year
before on account of her bad conduct. And if the curé did not
make a similar objection this year it was because he feared she
would never come again and that his refusal would launch on the
Parisian <i>pavé</i> another castaway.</p>

<p>Nana danced with joy at the mere thought of what the
Lorilleuxs&mdash;as her godparents&mdash;had promised, while Mme
Lerat gave the veil and cup, Virginie the purse and Lantier a
prayer book, so that the Coupeaus looked forward to the day
without anxiety.</p>

<p>The Poissons&mdash;probably through Lantier's
advice&mdash;selected this occasion for their housewarming. They
invited the Coupeaus and the Boche family, as Pauline made her
first Communion on that day, as well as Nana.</p>

<p>The evening before, while Nana stood in an ecstasy of delight
before her presents, her father came in in an abominable
condition. His virtuous resolutions had yielded to the air of
Paris; he had fallen into evil ways again, and he now assailed
his wife and child with the vilest epithets, which did not seem
to shock Nana, for they could fall from her tongue on occasion
with facile glibness.</p>

<p>"I want my soup," cried Coupeau, "and you two fools are
chattering over those fal-lals! I tell you, I will sit on them if
I am not waited upon, and quickly too."</p>

<p>Gervaise answered impatiently, but Nana, who thought it better
taste just then&mdash;all things considered&mdash;to receive with
meekness all her father's abuse, dropped her eyes and did not
reply.</p>

<p>"Take that rubbish away!" he cried with growing impatience.
"Put it out of my sight or I will tear it to bits."</p>

<p>Nana did not seem to hear him. She took up the tulle cap and
asked her mother what it cost, and when Coupeau tried to snatch
the cap Gervaise pushed him away.</p>

<p>"Let the child alone!" she said. "She is doing no harm!"</p>

<p>Then her husband went into a perfect rage:</p>

<p>"Mother and daughter," he cried, "a nice pair they make. I
understand very well what all this row is for: it is merely to
show yourself in a new gown. I will put you in a bag and tie it
close round your throat, and you will see if the curé likes
that!"</p>

<p>Nana turned like lightning to protect her treasures. She
looked her father full in the face, and, forgetting the lessons
taught her by her priest, she said in a low, concentrated
voice:</p>

<p>"Beast!" That was all.</p>

<p>After Coupeau had eaten his soup he fell asleep and in the
morning woke quite amiable. He admired his daughter and said she
looked quite like a young lady in her white robe. Then he added
with a sentimental air that a father on such days was naturally
proud of his child. When they were ready to go to the church and
Nana met Pauline in the corridor, she examined the latter from
head to foot and smiled condescendingly on seeing that Pauline
had not a particle of chic.</p>

<p>The two families started off together, Nana and Pauline in
front, each with her prayer book in one hand and with the other
holding down her veil, which swelled in the wind like a sail.
They did not speak to each other but keenly enjoyed seeing the
shopkeepers run to their doors to see them, keeping their eyes
cast down devoutly but their ears wide open to any compliment
they might hear.</p>

<p>Nana's two aunts walked side by side, exchanging their
opinions in regard to Gervaise, whom they stigmatized as an
irreligious ne'er-do-well whose child would never have gone to
the Holy Communion if it had depended on her.</p>

<p>At the church Coupeau wept all the time. It was very silly, he
knew, but he could not help it. The voice of the curé was
pathetic; the little girls looked like white-robed angels; the
organ thrilled him, and the incense gratified his senses. There
was one especial anthem which touched him deeply. He was not the
only person who wept, he was glad to see, and when the ceremony
was over he left the church feeling that it was the happiest day
of his life. But an hour later he quarreled with Lorilleux in a
wineshop because the latter was so hardhearted.</p>

<p>The housewarming at the Poissons' that night was very gay.
Lantier sat between Gervaise and Virginie and was equally civil
and attentive to both. Opposite was Poisson with his calm,
impassive face, a look he had cultivated since he began his
career as a police officer.</p>

<p>But the queens of the fete were the two little girls, Nana and
Pauline, who sat very erect lest they should crush and deface
their pretty white dresses. At dessert there was a serious
discussion in regard to the future of the children. Mme Boche
said that Pauline would at once enter a certain manufactory,
where she would receive five or six francs per week. Gervaise had
not decided yet, for Nana had shown no especial leaning in any
direction. She had a good deal of taste, but she was
butter-fingered and careless.</p>

<p>"I should make a florist of her," said Mme Lerat. "It is clean
work and pretty work too."</p>

<p>Whereupon ensued a warm discussion. The men were especially
careful of their language out of deference to the little girls,
but Mme Lerat would not accept the lesson: she flattered herself
she could say what she pleased in such a way that it could not
offend the most fastidious ears.</p>

<p>Women, she declared, who followed her trade were more virtuous
than others. They rarely made a slip.</p>

<p>"I have no objection to your trade," interrupted Gervaise. "If
Nana likes to make flowers let her do so. Say, Nana, would you
like it?"</p>

<p>The little girl did not look up from her plate, into which she
was dipping a crust of bread. She smiled faintly as she
replied:</p>

<p>"Yes, Mamma; if you desire it I have no objection."</p>

<p>The decision was instantly made, and Coupeau wished his sister
to take her the very next day to the place where she herself
worked, Rue du Caire, and the circle talked gravely of the duties
of life. Boche said that Pauline and Nana were now women, since
they had been to Communion, and they ought to be serious and
learn to cook and to mend. They alluded to their future
marriages, their homes and their children, and the girls touched
each other under the table, giggled and grew very red. Lantier
asked them if they did not have little husbands already, and Nana
blushingly confessed that she loved Victor Fauconnier and never
meant to marry anyone else.</p>

<p>Mme Lorilleux said to Mme Boche on their way home:</p>

<p>"Nana is our goddaughter now, but if she goes into that flower
business, in six months she will be on the <i>pavé</i>,
and we will have nothing to do with her."</p>

<p>Gervaise told Boche that she thought the shop admirably
arranged. She had looked forward to an evening of torture and was
surprised that she had not experienced a pang.</p>

<p>Nana, as she undressed, asked her mother if the girl on the
next floor, who had been married the week before, wore a dress of
muslin like hers.</p>

<p>But this was the last bright day in that household. Two years
passed away, and their prospects grew darker and their
demoralization and degradation more evident. They went without
food and without fire, but never without brandy.</p>

<p>They found it almost impossible to meet their rent, and a
certain January came when they had not a penny, and Father Boche
ordered them to leave.</p>

<p>It was frightfully cold, with a sharp wind blowing from the
north.</p>

<p>M. Marescot appeared in a warm overcoat and his hands encased
in warm woolen gloves and told them they must go, even if they
slept in the gutter. The whole house was oppressed with woe, and
a dreary sound of lamentation arose from most of the rooms, for
half the tenants were behindhand. Gervaise sold her bed and paid
the rent. Nana made nothing as yet, and Gervaise had so fallen
off in her work that Mme Fauconnier had reduced her wages. She
was irregular in her hours and often absented herself from the
shop for several days together but was none the less vexed to
discover that her old employee, Mme Putois, had been placed above
her. Naturally at the end of the week Gervaise had little money
coming to her.</p>

<p>As to Coupeau, if he worked he brought no money home, and his
wife had ceased to count upon it. Sometimes he declared he had
lost it through a hole in his pocket or it had been stolen, but
after a while he ceased to make any excuses.</p>

<p>But if he had no cash in his pockets it was because he had
spent it all in drink. Mme Boche advised Gervaise to watch for
him at the door of the place where he was employed and get his
wages from him before he had spent them all, but this did no
good, as Coupeau was warned by his friends and escaped by a rear
door.</p>

<p>The Coupeaus were entirely to blame for their misfortunes, but
this is just what people will never admit. It is always ill luck
or the cruelty of God or anything, in short, save the legitimate
result of their own vices.</p>

<p>Gervaise now quarreled with her husband incessantly. The
warmth of affection of husband and wife, of parents for their
children and children for their parents had fled and left them
all shivering, each apart from the other.</p>

<p>All three, Coupeau, Gervaise and Nana, watched each other with
eyes of baleful hate. It seemed as if some spring had
broken&mdash;the great mainspring that binds families
together.</p>

<p>Gervaise did not shudder when she saw her husband lying drunk
in the gutter. She would not have pushed him in, to be sure, but
if he were out of the way it would be a good thing for everybody.
She even went so far as to say one day in a fit of rage that she
would be glad to see him brought home on a shutter. Of what good
was he to any human being? He ate and he drank and he slept. His
child learned to hate him, and she read the accidents in the
papers with the feelings of an unnatural daughter. What a pity it
was that her father had not been the man who was killed when that
omnibus tipped over!</p>

<p>In addition to her own sorrows and privations, Gervaise, whose
heart was not yet altogether hard, was condemned to hear now of
the sufferings of others. The corner of the house in which she
lived seemed to be consecrated to those who were as poor as
herself. No smell of cooking filled the air, which, on the
contrary, was laden with the shrill cries of hungry children,
heavy with the sighs of weary, heartbroken mothers and with the
oaths of drunken husbands and fathers.</p>

<p>Gervaise pitied Father Bru from the bottom of her heart; he
lay the greater part of the time rolled up in the straw in his
den under the staircase leading to the roof. When two or three
days elapsed without his showing himself someone opened the door
and looked in to see if he were still alive.</p>

<p>Yes, he was living; that is, he was not dead. When Gervaise
had bread she always remembered him. If she had learned to hate
men because of her husband her heart was still tender toward
animals, and Father Bru seemed like one to her. She regarded him
as a faithful old dog. Her heart was heavy within her whenever
she thought of him, alone, abandoned by God and man, dying by
inches or drying, rather, as an orange dries on the chimney
piece.</p>

<p>Gervaise was also troubled by the vicinity of the undertaker
Bazonge&mdash;a wooden partition alone separated their rooms.
When he came in at night she could hear him throw down his glazed
hat, which fell with a dull thud, like a shovelful of clay, on
the table. The black cloak hung against the wall rustled like the
wings of some huge bird of prey. She could hear his every
movement, and she spent most of her time listening to him with
morbid horror, while he&mdash;all unconscious&mdash;hummed his
vulgar songs and tipsily staggered to his bed, under which the
poor woman's sick fancy pictured a dead body concealed.</p>

<p>She had read in some paper a dismal tale of some undertaker
who took home with him coffin after coffin&mdash;children's
coffins&mdash;in order to make one trip to the cemetery suffice.
When she heard his step the whole corridor was pervaded to her
senses with the odor of dead humanity.</p>

<p>She would as lief have resided at Père-Lachaise and
watched the moles at their work. The man terrified her; his
incessant laughter dismayed her. She talked of moving but at the
same time was reluctant to do so, for there was a strange
fascination about Bazonge after all. Had he not told her once
that he would come for her and lay her down to sleep in the
shadow of waving branches, where she would know neither hunger
nor toil?</p>

<p>She wished she could try it for a month. And she thought how
delicious it would be in midwinter, just at the time her
quarter's rent was due. But, alas, this was not possible! The
rest and the sleep must be eternal; this thought chilled her, and
her longing for death faded away before the unrelenting severity
of the bonds exacted by Mother Earth.</p>

<p>One night she was sick and feverish, and instead of throwing
herself out of the window as she was tempted to do, she rapped on
the partition and called loudly:</p>

<p>"Father Bazonge! Father Bazonge!"</p>

<p>The undertaker was kicking off his slippers, singing a vulgar
song as he did so.</p>

<p>"What is the matter?" he answered.</p>

<p>But at his voice Gervaise awoke as from a nightmare. What had
she done? Had she really tapped? she asked herself, and she
recoiled from his side of the wall in chill horror. It seemed to
her that she felt the undertaker's hands on her head. No! No! She
was not ready. She told herself that she had not intended to call
him. It was her elbow that had knocked the wall accidentally, and
she shivered from head to foot at the idea of being carried away
in this man's arms.</p>

<p>"What is the matter?" repeated Bazonge. "Can I serve you in
any way, madame?"</p>

<p>"No! No! It is nothing!" answered the laundress in a choked
voice. "I am very much obliged."</p>

<p>While the undertaker slept she lay wide awake, holding her
breath and not daring to move, lest he should think she called
him again.</p>

<p>She said to herself that under no circumstances would she ever
appeal to him for assistance, and she said this over and over
again with the vain hope of reassuring herself, for she was by no
means at ease in her mind.</p>

<p>Gervaise had before her a noble example of courage and
fortitude in the Bijard family. Little Lalie, that tiny
child&mdash;about as big as a pinch of salt&mdash;swept and kept
her room like wax; she watched over the two younger children with
all the care and patience of a mother. This she had done since
her father had kicked her mother to death. She had entirely
assumed that mother's place, even to receiving the blows which
had fallen formerly on that poor woman. It seemed to be a
necessity of his nature that when he came home drunk he must have
some woman to abuse. Lalie was too small, he grumbled; one blow
of his fist covered her whole face, and her skin was so delicate
that the marks of his five fingers would remain on her cheek for
days!</p>

<p>He would fly at her like a wolf at a poor little kitten for
the merest trifle. Lalie never answered, never rebelled and never
complained. She merely tried to shield her face and suppressed
all shrieks, lest the neighbors should come; her pride could not
endure that. When her father was tired kicking her about the room
she lay where he left her until she had strength to rise, and
then she went steadily about her work, washing the children and
making her soup, sweeping and dusting until everything was clean.
It was a part of her plan of life to be beaten every day.</p>

<p>Gervaise had conceived a strong affection for this little
neighbor. She treated her like a woman who knew something of
life. It must be admitted that Lalie was large for her years. She
was fair and pale, with solemn eyes for her years and had a
delicate mouth. To have heard her talk one would have thought her
thirty. She could make and mend, and she talked of the children
as if she had herself brought them into the world. She made
people laugh sometimes when she talked, but more often she
brought tears to their eyes.</p>

<p>Gervaise did everything she could for her, gave her what she
could and helped the energetic little soul with her work. One day
she was altering a dress of Nana's for her, and when the child
tried it on Gervaise was chilled with horror at seeing her whole
back purple and bruised, the tiny arm bleeding&mdash;all the
innocent flesh of childhood martyrized by the brute&mdash;her
father.</p>

<p>Bazonge might get the coffin ready, she thought, for the
little girl could not bear this long. But Lalie entreated her
friend to say nothing, telling her that her father did not know
what he was doing, that he had been drinking. She forgave him
with her whole heart, for madmen must not be held accountable for
their deeds. After that Gervaise was on the watch whenever she
heard Bijard coming up the stairs. But she never caught him in
any act of absolute brutality. Several times she had found Lalie
tied to the foot of the bedstead&mdash;an idea that had entered
her father's brain, no one knew why, a whim of his disordered
brain, disordered by liquor, which probably arose from his wish
to tyrannize over the child, even when he was no longer
there.</p>

<p>Lalie sometimes was left there all day and once all night.
When Gervaise insisted on untying her the child entreated her not
to touch the knots, saying that her father would be furious if he
found the knots had been tampered with.</p>

<p>And really, she said with an angelic smile, she needed rest,
and the only thing that troubled her was not to be able to put
the room in order. She could watch the children just as well, and
she could think, so that her time was not entirely lost. When her
father let her free, her sufferings were not over, for it was
sometimes more than an hour before she could stand&mdash;before
the blood circulated freely in her stiffened limbs.</p>

<p>Her father had invented another cheerful game. He heated some
sous red hot on the stove and laid them on the chimney piece. He
then summoned Lalie and bade her go buy some bread. The child
unsuspiciously took up the sous, uttered a little shriek and
dropped them, shaking her poor burned fingers.</p>

<p>Then he would go off in a rage. What did she mean by such
nonsense? She had thrown away the money and lost it, and he
threatened her with a hiding if she did not find the money
instantly. The poor child hesitated; he gave her a cuff on the
side of the head. With silent tears streaming down her cheeks she
would pick up the sous and toss them from hand to hand to cool
them as she went down the long flights of stairs.</p>

<p>There was no limit to the strange ingenuity of the man. One
afternoon, for example, Lalie had completed playing with the
children. The window was open, and the air shook the door so that
it sounded like gentle raps.</p>

<p>"It is Mr Wind," said Lalie; "come in, Mr Wind. How are you
today?"</p>

<p>And she made a low curtsy to Mr Wind. The children did the
same in high glee, and she was quite radiant with happiness,
which was not often the case.</p>

<p>"Come in, Mr Wind!" she repeated, but the door was pushed open
by a rough hand and Bijard entered. Then a sudden change came
over the scene. The two children crouched in a corner, while
Lalie stood in the center of the floor, frozen stiff with terror,
for Bijard held in his hand a new whip with a long and
wicked-looking lash. He laid this whip on the bed and did not
kick either one of the children but smiled in the most vicious
way, showing his two lines of blackened, irregular teeth. He was
very drunk and very noisy.</p>

<p>"What is the matter with you fools? Have you been struck dumb?
I heard you all talking and laughing merrily enough before I came
in. Where are your tongues now? Here! Take off my shoes!"</p>

<p>Lalie, considerably disheartened at not having received her
customary kick, turned very pale as she obeyed. He was sitting on
the side of the bed. He lay down without undressing and watched
the child as she moved about the room. Troubled by this strange
conduct, the child ended by breaking a cup. Then without
disturbing himself he took up the whip and showed it to her.</p>

<p>"Look here, fool," he said grimly: "I bought this for you, and
it cost me fifty sous, but I expect to get a good deal more than
fifty sous' worth of good out of it. With this long lash I need
not run about after you, for I can reach you in every corner of
the room. You will break the cups, will you? Come, now, jump
about a little and say good morning to Mr Wind again!"</p>

<p>He did not even sit up in the bed but, with his head buried in
the pillow, snapped the whip with a noise like that made by a
postilion. The lash curled round Lalie's slender body; she fell
to the floor, but he lashed her again and compelled her to
rise.</p>

<p>"This is a very good thing," he said coolly, "and saves my
getting chilled on cold mornings. Yes, I can reach you in that
corner&mdash;and in that! Skip now! Skip!"</p>

<p>A light foam was on his lips, and his suffused eyes were
starting from their sockets. Poor little Lalie darted about the
room like a terrified bird, but the lash tingled over her
shoulders, coiled around her slender legs and stung like a viper.
She was like an India-rubber ball bounding from the floor, while
her beast of a father laughed aloud and asked her if she had had
enough.</p>

<p>The door opened and Gervaise entered. She had heard the noise.
She stood aghast at the scene and then was seized with noble
rage.</p>

<p>"Let her be!" she cried. "I will go myself and summon the
police."</p>

<p>Bijard growled like an animal who is disturbed over his
prey.</p>

<p>"Why do you meddle?" he exclaimed. "What business is it of
yours?"</p>

<p>And with another adroit movement he cut Lalie across the face.
The blood gushed from her lip. Gervaise snatched a chair and flew
at the brute, but the little girl held her skirts and said it did
not hurt much; it would be over soon, and she washed the blood
away, speaking gently to the frightened children.</p>

<p>When Gervaise thought of Lalie she was ashamed to complain.
She wished she had the courage of this child. She knew that she
had lived on dry bread for weeks and that she was so weak she
could hardly stand, and the tears came to the woman's eyes as she
saw the precocious mite who had known nothing of the innocent
happiness of her years. And Gervaise took this slender creature
for example, whose eyes alone told the story of her misery and
hardships, for in the Coupeau family the vitriol of the Assommoir
was doing its work of destruction. Gervaise had seen a whip.
Gervaise had learned to dread it, and this dread inspired her
with tenderest pity for Lalie. Coupeau had lost the flesh and the
bloated look which had been his, and he was thin and emaciated.
His complexion was gradually acquiring a leaden hue. His appetite
was utterly gone. It was with difficulty that he swallowed a
mouthful of bread. His stomach turned against all solid food, but
he took his brandy every day. This was his meat as well as his
drink, and he touched nothing else.</p>

<p>When he crawled out of his bed in the morning he stood for a
good fifteen minutes, coughing and spitting out a bitter liquid
that rose in his throat and choked him.</p>

<p>He did not feel any better until he had taken what he called
"a good drink," and later in the day his strength returned. He
felt strange prickings in the skin of his hands and feet. But
lately his limbs had grown heavy. This pricking sensation gave
place to the most excruciating cramps, which he did not find very
amusing. He rarely laughed now but often stopped short and stood
still on the sidewalk, troubled by a strange buzzing in his ears
and by flashes of light before his eyes. Everything looked yellow
to him; the houses seemed to be moving away from him. At other
times, when the sun was full on his back, he shivered as if a
stream of ice water had been poured down between his shoulders.
But the thing he liked the least about himself was a nervous
trembling in his hands, the right hand especially.</p>

<p>Had he become an old woman then? he asked himself with sudden
fury. He tried with all his strength to lift his glass and
command his nerves enough to hold it steady. But the glass had a
regular tremulous movement from right to left and left to right
again, in spite of all his efforts.</p>

<p>Then he emptied it down his throat, saying that when he had
swallowed a dozen more he would be all right and as steady as a
monument. Gervaise told him, on the contrary, that he must leave
off drinking if he wished to leave off trembling.</p>

<p>He grew very angry and drank quarts in his eagerness to test
the question, finally declaring that it was the passing
omnibusses that jarred the house and shook his hand.</p>

<p>In March Coupeau came in one night drenched to the skin. He
had been caught out in a shower. That night he could not sleep
for coughing. In the morning he had a high fever, and the
physician who was sent for advised Gervaise to send him at once
to the hospital.</p>

<p>And Gervaise made no objection; once she had refused to trust
her husband to these people, but now she consigned him to their
tender mercies without a regret; in fact, she regarded it as a
mercy.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, when the litter came she turned very pale and,
if she had had even ten francs in her pocket, would have kept him
at home. She walked to the hospital by the side of the litter and
went into the ward where he was placed. The room looked to her
like a miniature Père-Lachaise, with its rows of beds on
either side and its path down the middle. She went slowly away,
and in the street she turned and looked up. How well she
remembered when Coupeau was at work on those gutters, cheerily
singing in the morning air! He did not drink in those days, and
she, at her window in the Hôtel Boncœur, had watched his
athletic form against the sky, and both had waved their
handkerchiefs. Yes, Coupeau had worked more than a year on this
hospital, little thinking that he was preparing a place for
himself. Now he was no longer on the roof&mdash;he had built a
dismal nest within. Good God, was she and the once-happy wife and
mother one and the same? How long ago those days seemed!</p>

<p>The next day when Gervaise went to make inquiries she found
the bed empty. A sister explained that her husband had been taken
to the asylum of Sainte-Anne, because the night before he had
suddenly become unmanageable from delirium and had uttered such
terrible howls that it disturbed the inmates of all the beds in
that ward. It was the alcohol in his system, she said, which
attacked his nerves now, when he was so reduced by the
inflammation on his lungs that he could not resist it.</p>

<p>The clearstarcher went home, but how or by what route she
never knew. Her husband was mad&mdash;she heard these words
reverberating through her brain. Life was growing very strange.
Nana simply said that he must, of course, be left at the asylum,
for he might murder them both.</p>

<p>On Sunday only could Gervaise go to Sainte-Anne. It was a long
distance off. Fortunately there was an omnibus which went very
near. She got out at La Rue Sante and bought two oranges that she
might not go quite empty-handed.</p>

<p>But when she went in, to her astonishment she found Coupeau
sitting up. He welcomed her gaily.</p>

<p>"You are better!" she exclaimed.</p>

<p>"Yes, nearly well," he replied, and they talked together
awhile, and she gave him the oranges, which pleased and touched
him, for he was a different man now that he drank tisane instead
of liquor. She did not dare allude to his delirium, but he spoke
of it himself.</p>

<p>"Yes," he said, "I was in a pretty state! I saw rats running
all over the floor and the walls, and you were calling me, and I
saw all sorts of horrible things! But I am all right now. Once in
a while I have a bad dream, but everybody does, I suppose."</p>

<p>Gervaise remained with him until night. When the house surgeon
made his rounds at six o'clock he told him to hold out his hands.
They scarcely trembled&mdash;an almost imperceptible motion of
the tips of his fingers was all. But as the room grew darker
Coupeau became restless. Two or three times he sat up and peered
into the remote corners.</p>

<p>Suddenly he stretched out his arms and seemed to crush some
creature on the wall.</p>

<p>"What is it?" asked Gervaise, terribly frightened.</p>

<p>"Rats!" he said quietly. "Only rats!"</p>

<p>After a long silence he seemed to be dropping off to sleep,
with disconnected sentences falling from his lips.</p>

<p>"Dirty beasts! Look out, one is under your skirts!" He pulled
the covering hastily over his head, as if to protect himself
against the creature he saw.</p>

<p>Then starting up in mad terror, he screamed aloud. A nurse ran
to the bed, and Gervaise was sent away, mute with horror at this
scene.</p>

<p>But when on the following Sunday she went again to the
hospital, Coupeau was really well. All his dreams had vanished.
He slept like a child, ten hours without lifting a finger. His
wife, therefore, was allowed to take him away. The house surgeon
gave him a few words of advice before he left, assuring him if he
continued to drink he would be a dead man in three months. All
depended on himself. He could live at home just as he had lived
at Sainte-Anne's and must forget that such things as wine and
brandy existed.</p>

<p>"He is right," said Gervaise as they took their seats in the
omnibus.</p>

<p>"Of course he is right," answered her husband. But after a
moment's silence he added:</p>

<p>"But then, you know, a drop of brandy now and then never hurts
a man: it aids digestion."</p>

<p>That very evening he took a tiny drop and for a week was very
moderate; he had no desire, he said, to end his days at Bicetre.
But he was soon off his guard, and one day his little drop ended
in a full glass, to be followed by a second, and so on. At the
end of a fortnight he had fallen back in the old rut.</p>

<p>Gervaise did her best, but, after all, what can a wife do in
such circumstances?</p>

<p>She had been so startled by the scene at the asylum that she
had fully determined to begin a regular life again and hoped that
he would assist her and do the same himself. But now she saw that
there was no hope, that even the knowledge of the inevitable
results could not restrain her husband now.</p>

<p>Then the hell on earth began again; hopeless and intolerant,
Nana asked indignantly why he had not remained in the asylum. All
the money she made, she said, should be spent in brandy for her
father, for the sooner it was ended, the better for them all.</p>

<p>Gervaise blazed out one day when he lamented his marriage and
told him that it was for her to curse the day when she first saw
him. He must remember that she had refused him over and over
again. The scene was a frightful one and one unexampled in the
Coupeau annals.</p>

<p>Gervaise, now utterly discouraged, grew more indolent every
day. Her room was rarely swept. The Lorilleuxs said they could
not enter it, it was so dirty. They talked all day long over
their work of the downfall of Wooden Legs. They gloated over her
poverty and her rags.</p>

<p>"Well! Well!" they murmured. "A great change has indeed come
to that beautiful blonde who was so fine in her blue shop."</p>

<p>Gervaise suspected their comments on her and her acts to be
most unkind, but she determined to have no open quarrel. It was
for her interest to speak to them when they met, but that was all
the intercourse between them.</p>

<p>On Saturday Coupeau had told his wife he would take her to the
circus; he had earned a little money and insisted on indulging
himself. Nana was obliged to stay late at the place where she
worked and would sleep with her aunt Mme Lerat.</p>

<p>Seven o'clock came, but no Coupeau. Her husband was drinking
with his comrades probably. She had washed a cap and mended an
old gown with the hope of being presentable. About nine o'clock,
in a towering rage, she sallied forth on an empty stomach to find
Coupeau.</p>

<p>"Are you looking for your husband?" said Mme Boche. "He is at
the Assommoir. Boche has just seen him there."</p>

<p>Gervaise muttered her thanks and went with rapid steps to the
Assommoir.</p>

<p>A fine rain was falling. The gas in the tavern was blazing
brightly, lighting up the mirrors, the bottles and glasses. She
stood at the window and looked in. He was sitting at a table with
his comrades. The atmosphere was thick with smoke, and he looked
stupefied and half asleep.</p>

<p>She shivered and wondered why she should stay there and, so
thinking, turned away, only to come back twice to look again.</p>

<p>The water lay on the uneven sidewalk in pools, reflecting all
the lights from the Assommoir. Finally she determined on a bold
step: she opened the door and deliberately walked up to her
husband. After all, why should she not ask him why he had not
kept his promise of taking her to the circus? At any rate, she
would not stay out there in the rain and melt away like a cake of
soap.</p>

<p>"She is crazy!" said Coupeau when he saw her. "I tell you, she
is crazy!"</p>

<p>He and all his friends shrieked with laughter, but no one
condescended to say what it was that was so very droll. Gervaise
stood still, a little bewildered by this unexpected reception.
Coupeau was so amiable that she said:</p>

<p>"Come, you know it is not too late to see something."</p>

<p>"Sit down a minute," said her husband, not moving from his
seat.</p>

<p>Gervaise saw she could not stand there among all those men, so
she accepted the offered chair. She looked at the glasses, whose
contents glittered like gold. She looked at these dirty, shabby
men and at the others crowding around the counter. It was very
warm, and the pipe smoke thickened the air.</p>

<p>Gervaise felt as if she were choking; her eyes smarted, and
her head was heavy with the fumes of alcohol. She turned around
and saw the still, the machine that created drunkards. That
evening the copper was dull and glittered only in one round spot.
The shadows of the apparatus on the wall behind were strange and
weird&mdash;creatures with tails, monsters opening gigantic jaws
as if to swallow the whole world.</p>

<p>"What will you take to drink?" said Coupeau.</p>

<p>"Nothing," answered his wife. "You know I have had no
dinner!"</p>

<p>"You need it all the more then! Have a drop of something!"</p>

<p>As she hesitated Mes-Bottes said gallantly:</p>

<p>"The lady would like something sweet like herself."</p>

<p>"I like men," she answered angrily, "who do not get tipsy and
talk like fools! I like men who keep their promises!"</p>

<p>Her husband laughed.</p>

<p>"You had better drink your share," he said, "for the devil a
bit of a circus will you see tonight."</p>

<p>She looked at him fixedly. A heavy frown contracted her
eyebrows. She answered slowly:</p>

<p>"You are right; it is a good idea. We can drink up the money
together."</p>

<p>Bibi brought her a glass of anisette. As she sipped it she
remembered all at once the brandied fruit she had eaten in the
same place with Coupeau when he was courting her. That day she
had left the brandy and took only the fruit, and now she was
sitting there drinking liqueur.</p>

<p>But the anisette was good. When her glass was empty she
refused another, and yet she was not satisfied.</p>

<p>She looked around at the infernal machine behind her&mdash;a
machine that should have been buried ten fathoms deep in the sea.
Nevertheless, it had for her a strange fascination, and she
longed to quench her thirst with that liquid fire.</p>

<p>"What is that you have in your glasses?" she asked.</p>

<p>"That, my dear," answered her husband, "is Father Colombe's
own especial brew. Taste it."</p>

<p>And when a glass of the vitriol was brought to her Coupeau
bade her swallow it down, saying it was good for her.</p>

<p>After she had drunk this glass Gervaise was no longer
conscious of the hunger that had tormented her. Coupeau told her
they could go to the circus another time, and she felt she had
best stay where she was. It did not rain in the Assommoir, and
she had come to look upon the scene as rather amusing. She was
comfortable and sleepy. She took a third glass and then put her
head on her folded arms, supporting them on the table, and
listened to her husband and his friends as they talked.</p>

<p>Behind her the still was at work with constant drip-drip, and
she felt a mad desire to grapple with it as with some dangerous
beast and tear out its heart. She seemed to feel herself caught
in those copper fangs and fancied that those coils of pipe were
wound around her own body, slowly but surely crushing out her
life.</p>

<p>The whole room danced before her eyes, for Gervaise was now in
the condition which had so often excited her pity and indignation
with others. She vaguely heard a quarrel arise and a crash of
chairs and tables, and then Father Colombe promptly turned
everyone into the street.</p>

<p>It was still raining and a cold, sharp wind blowing. Gervaise
lost Coupeau, found him and then lost him again. She wanted to go
home, but she could not find her way. At the corner of the street
she took her seat by the side of the gutter, thinking herself at
her washtub. Finally she got home and endeavored to walk straight
past the door of the concierge, within whose room she was vaguely
conscious of the Poissons and Lorilleuxs holding up their hands
in disgust at her condition.</p>

<p>She never knew how she got up those six flights of stairs. But
when she turned into her own corridor little Lalie ran toward her
with loving, extended arms.</p>

<p>"Dear Madame Gervaise," she cried, "Papa has not come in;
please come and see my children. They are sleeping so
sweetly!"</p>

<p>But when she looked up in the face of the clearstarcher she
recoiled, trembling from head to foot. She knew only too well
that alcoholic smell, those wandering eyes and convulsed
lips.</p>

<p>Then as Gervaise staggered past her without speaking the
child's arms fell at her side, and she looked after her friend
with sad and solemn eyes.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2>CHAPTER XI<br/>
LITTLE NANA</h2>

<p>Nana was growing fast&mdash;fair, fresh and dimpled&mdash;her
skin velvety, like a peach, and eyes so bright that men often
asked her if they might not light their pipes at them. Her mass
of blonde hair&mdash;the color of ripe wheat&mdash;looked around
her temples as if it were powdered with gold. She had a quaint
little trick of sticking out the tip of her tongue between her
white teeth, and this habit, for some reason, exasperated her
mother.</p>

<p>She was very fond of finery and very coquettish. In this
house, where bread was not always to be got, it was difficult for
her to indulge her caprices in the matter of costume, but she did
wonders. She brought home odds and ends of ribbons from the shop
where she worked and made them up into bows and knots with which
she ornamented her dirty dresses. She was not overparticular in
washing her feet, but she wore her boots so tight that she
suffered martyrdom in honor of St Crispin, and if anyone asked
her what the matter was when the pain flushed her face suddenly,
she always and promptly laid it to the score of the colic.</p>

<p>Summer was the season of her triumphs. In a calico dress that
cost five or six francs she was as fresh and sweet as a spring
morning and made the dull street radiant with her youth and her
beauty. She went by the name of "The Little Chicken." One gown,
in particular, suited her to perfection. It was white with
rose-colored dots, without trimming of any kind. The skirt was
short and showed her feet. The sleeves were very wide and
displayed her arms to the elbows. She turned the neck away and
fastened it with pins&mdash;in a corner in the corridor, dreading
her father's jests&mdash;to exhibit her pretty rounded throat. A
rose-colored ribbon, knotted in the rippling masses of her hair,
completed her toilet. She was a charming combination of child and
woman.</p>

<p>Sundays at this period of her life were her days for
coquetting with the public. She looked forward to them all the
week through with a longing for liberty and fresh air.</p>

<p>Early in the morning she began her preparations and stood for
hours in her chemise before the bit of broken mirror nailed by
the window, and as everyone could see her, her mother would be
very much vexed and ask how long she intended to show herself in
that way.</p>

<p>But she, quite undisturbed, went on fastening down the little
curls on her forehead with a little sugar and water and then
sewed the buttons on her boots or took a stitch or two in her
frock, barefooted all this time and with her chemise slipping off
her rounded shoulders.</p>

<p>Her father declared he would exhibit her as the "Wild Girl,"
at two sous a head.</p>

<p>She was very lovely in this scanty costume, the color flushing
her cheeks in her indignation at her father's sometimes coarse
remarks. She did not dare answer him, however, but bit off her
thread in silent rage. After breakfast she went down to the
courtyard. The house was wrapped in Sunday quiet; the workshops
on the lower floor were closed. Through some of the open windows
the tables were seen laid for dinners, the families being on the
fortifications "getting an appetite."</p>

<p>Five or six girls&mdash;Nana, Pauline and
others&mdash;lingered in the courtyard for a time and then took
flight altogether into the streets and thence to the outer
boulevards. They walked in a line, filling up the whole sidewalk,
with ribbons fluttering in their uncovered hair.</p>

<p>They managed to see everybody and everything through their
downcast lids. The streets were their native heath, as it were,
for they had grown up in them.</p>

<p>Nana walked in the center and gave her arm to Pauline, and as
they were the oldest and tallest of the band, they gave the law
to the others and decided where they should go for the day and
what they should do.</p>

<p>Nana and Pauline were deep ones. They did nothing without
premeditation. If they ran it was to show their slender ankles,
and when they stopped and panted for breath it was sure to be at
the side of some youths&mdash;young workmen of their
acquaintance&mdash;who smoked in their faces as they talked. Nana
had her favorite, whom she always saw at a great
distance&mdash;Victor Fauconnier&mdash;and Pauline adored a young
cabinetmaker, who gave her apples.</p>

<p>Toward sunset the great pleasure of the day began. A band of
mountebanks would spread a well-worn carpet, and a circle was
formed to look on. Nana and Pauline were always in the thickest
of the crowd, their pretty fresh dresses crushed between dirty
blouses, but insensible to the mingled odors of dust and alcohol,
tobacco and dirt. They heard vile language; it did not disturb
them; it was their own tongue&mdash;they heard little else. They
listened to it with a smile, their delicate cheeks unflushed.</p>

<p>The only thing that disturbed them was the appearance of their
fathers, particularly if these fathers seemed to have been
drinking. They kept a good lookout for this disaster.</p>

<p>"Look!" cried Pauline. "Your father is coming, Nana."</p>

<p>Then the girl would crouch on her knees and bid the others
stand close around her, and when he had passed on after an
inquiring look she would jump up and they would all utter peals
of laughter.</p>

<p>But one day Nana was kicked home by her father, and Boche
dragged Pauline away by her ear.</p>

<p>The girls would ordinarily return to the courtyard in the
twilight and establish themselves there with the air of not
having been away, and each invented a story with which to greet
their questioning parents. Nana now received forty sous per day
at the place where she had been apprenticed. The Coupeaus would
not allow her to change, because she was there under the
supervision of her aunt, Mme Lerat, who had been employed for
many years in the same establishment.</p>

<p>The girl went off at an early hour in her little black dress,
which was too short and too tight for her, and Mme Lerat was
bidden, whenever she was after her time, to inform Gervaise, who
allowed her just twenty minutes, which was quite long enough. But
she was often seven or eight minutes late, and she spent her
whole day coaxing her aunt not to tell her mother. Mme Lerat, who
was fond of the girl and understood the follies of youth, did not
tell, but at the same time she read Nana many a long sermon on
her follies and talked of her own responsibility and of the
dangers a young girl ran in Paris.</p>

<p>"You must tell me everything," she said. "I am too indulgent
to you, and if evil should come of it I should throw myself into
the Seine. Understand me, my little kitten; if a man should speak
to you you must promise to tell me every word he says. Will you
swear to do this?"</p>

<p>Nana laughed an equivocal little laugh. Oh yes, she would
promise. But men never spoke to her; she walked too fast for
that. What could they say to her? And she explained her
irregularity in coming&mdash;her five or ten minutes
delay&mdash;with an innocent little air. She had stopped at a
window to look at pictures or she had stopped to talk to Pauline.
Her aunt might follow her if she did not believe her.</p>

<p>"Oh, I will watch her. You need not be afraid!" said the widow
to her brother. "I will answer for her, as I would for
myself!"</p>

<p>The place where the aunt and niece worked side by side was a
large room with a long table down the center. Shelves against the
wall were piled with boxes and bundles&mdash;all covered with a
thick coating of dust. The gas had blackened the ceiling. The two
windows were so large that the women, seated at the table, could
see all that was going on in the street below.</p>

<p>Mme Lerat was the first to make her appearance in the morning,
but in another fifteen minutes all the others were there. One
morning in July Nana came in last, which, however, was the usual
case.</p>

<p>"I shall be glad when I have a carriage!" she said as she ran
to the window without even taking off her hat&mdash;a shabby
little straw.</p>

<p>"What are you looking at?" asked her aunt suspiciously. "Did
your father come with you?"</p>

<p>"No indeed," answered Nana carelessly; "nor am I looking at
anything. It is awfully warm, and of all things in the world, I
hate to be in a hurry."</p>

<p>The morning was indeed frightfully hot. The workwomen had
closed the blinds, leaving a crack, however, through which they
could inspect the street, and they took their seats on each side
of the table&mdash;Mme Lerat at the farther end. There were eight
girls, four on either side, each with her little pot of glue, her
pincers and other tools; heaps of wires of different lengths and
sizes lay on the table, spools of cotton and of different-colored
papers, petals and leaves cut out of silk, velvet and satin. In
the center, in a goblet, one of the girls had placed a two-sou
bouquet,&mdash;which was slowly withering in the heat.</p>

<p>"Did you know," said Leonie as she picked up a rose leaf with
her pincers, "how wretched poor Caroline is with that fellow who
used to call for her regularly every night?"</p>

<p>Before anyone could answer Leonie added:</p>

<p>"Hush! Here comes Madame."</p>

<p>And in sailed Mme Titreville, a tall, thin woman, who usually
remained below in the shop. Her employees stood in dread terror
of her, as she was never known to smile. She went from one to
another, finding fault with all; she ordered one woman to pull a
marguerite to pieces and make it over and then went out as
stiffly and silently as she had come in.</p>

<p>"Houp! Houp!" said Nana under her breath, and a giggle ran
round the table.</p>

<p>"Really, young ladies," said Mme Lerat, "you will compel me to
severe measures."</p>

<p>But no one was listening, and no one feared her. She was very
tolerant. They could say what they pleased, provided they put it
in decent language.</p>

<p>Nana was certainly in a good school! Her instincts, to be
sure, were vicious, but these instincts were fostered and
developed in this place, as is too often the case when a crowd of
girls are herded together. It was the story of a basket of
apples, the good ones spoiled by those that were already rotten.
If two girls were whispering in a corner, ten to one they were
telling some story that could not be told aloud.</p>

<p>Nana was not yet thoroughly perverted, but the curiosity which
had been her distinguishing characteristic as a child had not
deserted her, and she scarcely took her eyes from a girl by the
name of Lisa, about whom strange stories were told.</p>

<p>"How warm it is!" she exclaimed, suddenly rising and pushing
open the blinds. Leonie saw a man standing on the sidewalk
opposite.</p>

<p>"Who is that old fellow?" she said. "He has been there a full
quarter of an hour."</p>

<p>"Some fool who has nothing better to do, I suppose," said Mme
Lerat. "Nana, will you come back to your work? I have told you
that you should not go to that window."</p>

<p>Nana took up her violets, and they all began to watch this
man. He was well dressed, about fifty, pale and grave. For a full
hour he watched the windows.</p>

<p>"Look!" said Leonie. "He has an eyeglass. Oh, he is very chic.
He is waiting for Augustine." But Augustine sharply answered that
she did not like the old man.</p>

<p>"You make a great mistake then," said Mme Lerat with her
equivocal smile.</p>

<p>Nana listened to the conversation which
followed&mdash;reveling in indecency&mdash;as much at home in it
as a fish is in water. All the time her fingers were busy at
work. She wound her violet stems and fastened in the leaves with
a slender strip of green paper. A drop of gum&mdash;and then
behold a bunch of delicate fresh verdure which would fascinate
any lady. Her fingers were especially deft by nature. No
instruction could have imparted this quality.</p>

<p>The gentleman had gone away, and the workshop settled down
into quiet once more. When the bell rang for twelve Nana started
up and said she would go out and execute any commissions. Leonie
sent for two sous' worth of shrimp, Augustine for some fried
potatoes, Sophie for a sausage and Lisa for a bunch of radishes.
As she was going out, her aunt said quietly:</p>

<p>"I will go with you. I want something."</p>

<p>Lo, in the lane running up by the shop was the mysterious
stranger. Nana turned very red, and her aunt drew her arm within
her own and hurried her along.</p>

<p>So then he had come for her! Was not this pretty behavior for
a girl of her age? And Mme Lerat asked question after question,
but Nana knew nothing of him, she declared, though he had
followed her for five days.</p>

<p>Mme Lerat looked at the man out of the corners of her eyes.
"You must tell me everything," she said.</p>

<p>While they talked they went from shop to shop, and their arms
grew full of small packages, but they hurried back, still talking
of the gentleman.</p>

<p>"It may be a good thing," said Mme Lerat, "if his intentions
are only honorable."</p>

<p>The workwomen ate their breakfast on their knees; they were in
no hurry, either, to return to their work, when suddenly Leonie
uttered a low hiss, and like magic each girl was busy. Mme
Titreville entered the room and again made her rounds.</p>

<p>Mme Lerat did not allow her niece after this day to set foot
on the street without her. Nana at first was inclined to rebel,
but, on the whole, it rather flattered her vanity to be guarded
like a treasure. They had discovered that the man who followed
her with such persistency was a manufacturer of buttons, and one
night the aunt went directly up to him and told him that he was
behaving in a most improper manner. He bowed and, turning on his
heel, departed&mdash;not angrily, by any means&mdash;and the next
day he did as usual.</p>

<p>One day, however, he deliberately walked between the aunt and
the niece and said something to Nana in a low voice. This
frightened Mme Lerat, who went at once to her brother and told
him the whole story, whereupon he flew into a violent rage, shook
the girl until her teeth chattered and talked to her as if she
were the vilest of the vile.</p>

<p>"Let her be!" said Gervaise with all a woman's sense. "Let her
be! Don't you see that you are putting all sorts of things into
her head?"</p>

<p>And it was quite true; he had put ideas into her head and had
taught her some things she did not know before, which was very
astonishing. One morning he saw her with something in a paper. It
was <i>poudre de riz</i>, which, with a most perverted taste, she
was plastering upon her delicate skin. He rubbed the whole of the
powder into her hair until she looked like a miller's daughter.
Another time she came in with red ribbons to retrim her old hat;
he asked her furiously where she got them.</p>

<p>Whenever he saw her with a bit of finery her father flew at
her with insulting suspicion and angry violence. She defended
herself and her small possessions with equal violence. One day he
snatched from her a little cornelian heart and ground it to dust
under his heel.</p>

<p>She stood looking on, white and stern; for two years she had
longed for this heart. She said to herself that she would not
bear such treatment long. Coupeau occasionally realized that he
had made a mistake, but the mischief was done.</p>

<p>He went every morning with Nana to the shop door and waited
outside for five minutes to be sure that she had gone in. But one
morning, having stopped to talk with a friend on the corner for
some time, he saw her come out again and vanish like a flash
around the corner. She had gone up two flights higher than the
room where she worked and had sat down on the stairs until she
thought him well out of the way.</p>

<p>When he went to Mme Lerat she told him that she washed her
hands of the whole business; she had done all she could, and now
he must take care of his daughter himself. She advised him to
marry the girl at once or she would do worse.</p>

<p>All the people in the neighborhood knew Nana's admirer by
sight. He had been in the courtyard several times, and once he
had been seen on the stairs.</p>

<p>The Lorilleuxs threatened to move away if this sort of thing
went on, and Mme Boche expressed great pity for this poor
gentleman whom this scamp of a girl was leading by the nose.</p>

<p>At first Nana thought the whole thing a great joke, but at the
end of a month she began to be afraid of him. Often when she
stopped before the jeweler's he would suddenly appear at her side
and ask her what she wanted.</p>

<p>She did not care so much for jewelry or ornaments as she did
for many other things. Sometimes as the mud was spattered over
her from the wheels of a carriage she grew faint and sick with
envious longings to be better dressed, to go to the theater, to
have a pretty room all to herself. She longed to see another side
of life, to know something of its pleasures. The stranger
invariably appeared at these moments, but she always turned and
fled, so great was her horror of him.</p>

<p>But when winter came existence became well-nigh intolerable.
Each evening Nana was beaten, and when her father was tired of
this amusement her mother scolded. They rarely had anything to
eat and were always cold. If the girl bought some trifling
article of dress it was taken from her.</p>

<p>No! This life could not last. She no longer cared for her
father. He had thoroughly disgusted her, and now her mother drank
too. Gervaise went to the Assommoir nightly&mdash;for her
husband, she said&mdash;and remained there. When Nana saw her
mother sometimes as she passed the window, seated among a crowd
of men, she turned livid with rage, because youth has little
patience with the vice of intemperance. It was a dreary life for
her&mdash;a comfortless home and a drunken father and mother. A
saint on earth could not have remained there; that she knew very
well, and she said she would make her escape some fine day, and
then perhaps her parents would be sorry and would admit that they
had pushed her out of the nest.</p>

<p>One Saturday Nana, coming in, found her mother and father in a
deplorable condition&mdash;Coupeau lying across the bed and
Gervaise sitting in a chair, swaying to and fro. She had
forgotten the dinner, and one untrimmed candle lighted the dismal
scene.</p>

<p>"Is that you, girl?" stammered Gervaise. "Well, your father
will settle with you!"</p>

<p>Nana did not reply. She looked around the cheerless room, at
the cold stove, at her parents. She did not step across the
threshold. She turned and went away.</p>

<p>And she did not come back! The next day when her father and
mother were sober, they each reproached the other for Nana's
flight.</p>

<p>This was really a terrible blow to Gervaise, who had no longer
the smallest motive for self-control, and she abandoned herself
at once to a wild orgy that lasted three days. Coupeau gave his
daughter up and smoked his pipe quietly. Occasionally, however,
when eating his dinner, he would snatch up a knife and wave it
wildly in the air, crying out that he was dishonored and then,
laying it down as suddenly, resumed eating his soup.</p>

<p>In this great house, whence each month a girl or two took
flight, this incident astonished no one. The Lorilleuxs were
rather triumphant at the success of their prophecy. Lantier
defended Nana.</p>

<p>"Of course," he said, "she has done wrong, but bless my heart,
what would you have? A girl as pretty as that could not live all
her days in such poverty!"</p>

<p>"You know nothing about it!" cried Mme Lorilleux one evening
when they were all assembled in the room of the concierge.
"Wooden Legs sold her daughter out and out. I know it! I have
positive proof of what I say. The time that the old gentleman was
seen on the stairs he was going to pay the money. Nana and he
were seen together at the Ambigu the other night! I tell you, I
know it!"</p>

<p>They finished their coffee. This tale might or might not be
true; it was not improbable, at all events. And after this it was
circulated and generally believed in the <i>Quartier</i> that
Gervaise had sold her daughter.</p>

<p>The clearstarcher, meanwhile, was going from bad to worse. She
had been dismissed from Mme Fauconnier's and in the last few
weeks had worked for eight laundresses, one after the
other&mdash;dismissed from all for her untidiness.</p>

<p>As she seemed to have lost all skill in ironing, she went out
by the day to wash and by degrees was entrusted with only the
roughest work. This hard labor did not tend to beautify her
either. She continued to grow stouter and stouter in spite of her
scanty food and hard labor.</p>

<p>Her womanly pride and vanity had all departed. Lantier never
seemed to see her when they met by chance, and she hardly noticed
that the liaison which had stretched along for so many years had
ended in a mutual disenchantment.</p>

<p>Lantier had done wisely, so far as he was concerned, in
counseling Virginie to open the kind of shop she had. He adored
sweets and could have lived on pralines and gumdrops, sugarplums
and chocolate.</p>

<p>Sugared almonds were his especial delight. For a year his
principal food was bonbons. He opened all the jars, boxes and
drawers when he was left alone in the shop; and often, with five
or six persons standing around, he would take off the cover of a
jar on the counter and put in his hand and crunch down an almond.
The cover was not put on again, and the jar was soon empty. It
was a habit of his, they all said; besides, he was subject to a
tickling in his throat!</p>

<p>He talked a great deal to Poisson of an invention of his which
was worth a fortune&mdash;an umbrella and hat in one; that is to
say, a hat which, at the first drops of a shower, would expand
into an umbrella.</p>

<p>Lantier suggested to Virginie that she should have Gervaise
come in once each week to wash the floors, shop and the rooms.
This she did and received thirty sous each time. Gervaise
appeared on Saturday mornings with her bucket and brush, without
seeming to suffer a single pang at doing this menial work in the
house where she had lived as mistress.</p>

<p>One Saturday Gervaise had hard work. It had rained for three
days, and all the mud of the streets seemed to have been brought
into the shop. Virginie stood behind the counter with collar and
cuffs trimmed with lace. Near her on a low chair lounged Lantier,
and he was, as usual, eating candy.</p>

<p>"Really, Madame Coupeau," cried Virginie, "can't you do better
than that? You have left all the dirt in the corners. Don't you
see? Oblige me by doing that over again."</p>

<p>Gervaise obeyed. She went back to the corner and scrubbed it
again. She was on her hands and knees, with her sleeves rolled up
over her arms. Her old skirt clung close to her stout form, and
the sweat poured down her face.</p>

<p>"The more elbow grease she uses, the more she shines," said
Lantier sententiously with his mouth full.</p>

<p>Virginie, leaning back in her chair with the air of a
princess, followed the progress of the work with half-closed
eyes.</p>

<p>"A little more to the right. Remember, those spots must all be
taken out. Last Saturday, you know, I was not pleased."</p>

<p>And then Lantier and Virginie fell into a conversation, while
Gervaise crawled along the floor in the dirt at their feet.</p>

<p>Mme Poisson enjoyed this, for her cat's eyes sparkled with
malicious joy, and she glanced at Lantier with a smile. At last
she was avenged for that mortification at the lavatory, which had
for years weighed heavy on her soul.</p>

<p>"By the way," said Lantier, addressing himself to Gervaise, "I
saw Nana last night."</p>

<p>Gervaise started to her feet with her brush in her hand.</p>

<p>"Yes, I was coming down La Rue des Martyrs. In front of me was
a young girl on the arm of an old gentleman. As I passed I
glanced at her face and assure you that it was Nana. She was well
dressed and looked happy."</p>

<p>"Ah!" said Gervaise in a low, dull voice.</p>

<p>Lantier, who had finished one jar, now began another.</p>

<p>"What a girl that is!" he continued. "Imagine that she made me
a sign to follow with the most perfect self-possession. She got
rid of her old gentleman in a cafe and beckoned me to the door.
She asked me to tell her about everybody."</p>

<p>"Ah!" repeated Gervaise.</p>

<p>She stood waiting. Surely this was not all. Her daughter must
have sent her some especial message. Lantier ate his
sugarplums.</p>

<p>"I would not have looked at her," said Virginie. "I sincerely
trust, if I should meet her, that she would not speak to me for,
really, it would mortify me beyond expression. I am sorry for
you, Madame Gervaise, but the truth is that Poisson arrests every
day a dozen just such girls."</p>

<p>Gervaise said nothing; her eyes were fixed on vacancy. She
shook her head slowly, as if in reply to her own thoughts.</p>

<p>"Pray make haste," exclaimed Virginie fretfully. "I do not
care to have this scrubbing going on until midnight."</p>

<p>Gervaise returned to her work. With her two hands clasped
around the handle of the brush she pushed the water before her
toward the door. After this she had only to rinse the floor after
sweeping the dirty water into the gutter.</p>

<p>When all was accomplished she stood before the counter waiting
for her money. When Virginie tossed it toward her she did not
take it up instantly.</p>

<p>"Then she said nothing else?" Gervaise asked.</p>

<p>"She?" Lantier exclaimed. "Who is she? Ah yes, I remember.
Nana! No, she said nothing more."</p>

<p>And Gervaise went away with her thirty sous in her hand, her
skirts dripping and her shoes leaving the mark of their broad
soles on the sidewalk.</p>

<p>In the <i>Quartier</i> all the women who drank like her took
her part and declared she had been driven to intemperance by her
daughter's misconduct. She, too, began to believe this herself
and assumed at times a tragic air and wished she were dead.
Unquestionably she had suffered from Nana's departure. A mother
does not like to feel that her daughter will leave her for the
first person who asks her to do so.</p>

<p>But she was too thoroughly demoralized to care long, and soon
she had but one idea: that Nana belonged to her. Had she not a
right to her own property?</p>

<p>She roamed the streets day after day, night after night,
hoping to see the girl. That year half the <i>Quartier</i> was
being demolished. All one side of the Rue des Poissonnièrs
lay flat on the ground. Lantier and Poisson disputed day after
day on these demolitions. The one declared that the emperor
wanted to build palaces and drive the lower classes out of Paris,
while Poisson, white with rage, said the emperor would pull down
the whole of Paris merely to give work to the people.</p>

<p>Gervaise did not like the improvements, either, or the changes
in the dingy <i>Quartier</i>, to which she was accustomed. It
was, in fact, a little hard for her to see all these
embellishments just when she was going downhill so fast over the
piles of brick and mortar, while she was wandering about in
search of Nana.</p>

<p>She heard of her daughter several times. There are always
plenty of people to tell you things you do not care to hear. She
was told that Nana had left her elderly friend for the sake of
some young fellow.</p>

<p>She heard, too, that Nana had been seen at a ball in the Grand
Salon, Rue de la Chapelle, and Coupeau and she began to frequent
all these places, one after another, whenever they had the money
to spend.</p>

<p>But at the end of a month they had forgotten Nana and went for
their own pleasure. They sat for hours with their elbows on a
table, which shook with the movements of the dancers, amused by
the sight.</p>

<p>One November night they entered the Grand Salon, as much to
get warm as anything else. Outside it was hailing, and the rooms
were naturally crowded. They could not find a table, and they
stood waiting until they could establish themselves. Coupeau was
directly in the mouth of the passage, and a young man in a frock
coat was thrown against him. The youth uttered an exclamation of
disgust as he began to dust off his coat with his handkerchief.
The blouse worn by Coupeau was assuredly none of the
cleanest.</p>

<p>"Look here, my good fellow," cried Coupeau angrily, "those
airs are very unnecessary. I would have you to know that the
blouse of a workingman can do your coat no harm if it has touched
it!"</p>

<p>The young man turned around and looked at Coupeau from head to
foot.</p>

<p>"Learn," continued the angry workman, "that the blouse is the
only wear for a man!"</p>

<p>Gervaise endeavored to calm her husband, who, however, tapped
his ragged breast and repeated loudly:</p>

<p>"The only wear for a man, I tell you!"</p>

<p>The youth slipped away and was lost in the crowd.</p>

<p>Coupeau tried to find him, but it was quite impossible; the
crowd was too great. The orchestra was playing a quadrille, and
the dancers were bringing up the dust from the floor in great
clouds, which obscured the gas.</p>

<p>"Look!" said Gervaise suddenly.</p>

<p>"What is it?"</p>

<p>"Look at that velvet bonnet!"</p>

<p>Quite at the left there was a velvet bonnet, black with
plumes, only too suggestive of a hearse. They watched these
nodding plumes breathlessly.</p>

<p>"Do you not know that hair?" murmured Gervaise hoarsely. "I am
sure it is she!"</p>

<p>In one second Coupeau was in the center of the crowd. Yes, it
was Nana, and in what a costume! She wore a ragged silk dress,
stained and torn. She had no shawl over her shoulders to conceal
the fact that half the buttonholes on her dress were burst out.
In spite of all her shabbiness the girl was pretty and fresh.
Nana, of course, danced on unsuspiciously. Her airs and graces
were beyond belief. She curtsied to the very ground and then in a
twinkling threw her foot over her partner's head. A circle was
formed, and she was applauded vociferously.</p>

<p>At this moment Coupeau fell on his daughter.</p>

<p>"Don't try and keep me back," he said, "for have her I
will!"</p>

<p>Nana turned and saw her father and mother.</p>

<p>Coupeau discovered that his daughter's partner was the young
man for whom he had been looking. Gervaise pushed him aside and
walked up to Nana and gave her two cuffs on her ears. One sent
the plumed hat on the side; the other left five red marks on that
pale cheek. The orchestra played on. Nana neither wept nor
moved.</p>

<p>The dancers began to grow very angry. They ordered the Coupeau
party to leave the room.</p>

<p>"Go," said Gervaise, "and do not attempt to leave us, for so
sure as you do you will be given in charge of a policeman."</p>

<p>The young man had prudently disappeared.</p>

<p>Nana's old life now began again, for after the girl had slept
for twelve hours on a stretch, she was very gentle and sweet for
a week. She wore a plain gown and a simple hat and declared she
would like to work at home. She rose early and took a seat at her
table by five o'clock the first morning and tried to roll her
violet stems, but her fingers had lost their cunning in the six
months in which they had been idle.</p>

<p>Then the gluepot dried up; the petals and the paper were dusty
and spotted; the mistress of the establishment came for her tools
and materials and made more than one scene. Nana relapsed into
utter indolence, quarreling with her mother from morning until
night. Of course an end must come to this, so one fine evening
the girl disappeared.</p>

<p>The Lorilleuxs, who had been greatly amused by the repentance
and return of their niece, now nearly died laughing. If she
returned again they would advise the Coupeaus to put her in a
cage like a canary.</p>

<p>The Coupeaus pretended to be rather pleased, but in their
hearts they raged, particularly as they soon learned that Nana
was frequently seen in the <i>Quartier</i>. Gervaise declared
this was done by the girl to annoy them.</p>

<p>Nana adorned all the balls in the vicinity, and the Coupeaus
knew that they could lay their hands on her at any time they
chose, but they did not choose and they avoided meeting her.</p>

<p>But one night, just as they were going to bed, they heard a
rap on the door. It was Nana, who came to ask as coolly as
possible if she could sleep there. What a state she was in! All
rags and dirt. She devoured a crust of dried bread and fell
asleep with a part of it in her hand. This continued for some
time, the girl coming and going like a will-o'-the-wisp. Weeks
and months would elapse without a sign from her, and then she
would reappear without a word to say where she had been,
sometimes in rags and sometimes well dressed. Finally her parents
began to take these proceedings as a matter of course. She might
come in, they said, or stay out, just as she pleased, provided
she kept the door shut. Only one thing exasperated Gervaise now,
and that was when her daughter appeared with a bonnet and
feathers and a train. This she would not endure. When Nana came
to her it must be as a simple workingwoman! None of this dearly
bought finery should be exhibited there, for these trained
dresses had created a great excitement in the house.</p>

<p>One day Gervaise reproached her daughter violently for the
life she led and finally, in her rage, took her by the shoulder
and shook her.</p>

<p>"Let me be!" cried the girl. "You are the last person to talk
to me in that way. You did as you pleased. Why can't I do the
same?"</p>

<p>"What do you mean?" stammered the mother.</p>

<p>"I have never said anything about it because it was none of my
business, but do you think I did not know where you were when my
father lay snoring? Let me alone. It was you who set me the
example."</p>

<p>Gervaise turned away pale and trembling, while Nana composed
herself to sleep again.</p>

<p>Coupeau's life was a very regular one&mdash;that is to say, he
did not drink for six months and then yielded to temptation,
which brought him up with a round turn and sent him to
Sainte-Anne's. When he came out he did the same thing, so that in
three years he was seven times at Sainte-Anne's, and each time he
came out the fellow looked more broken and less able to stand
another orgy.</p>

<p>The poison had penetrated his entire system. He had grown very
thin; his cheeks were hollow and his eyes inflamed. Those who
knew his age shuddered as they saw him pass, bent and decrepit as
a man of eighty. The trembling of his hands had so increased that
some days he was obliged to use them both in raising his glass to
his lips. This annoyed him intensely and seemed to be the only
symptom of his failing health which disturbed him. He sometimes
swore violently at these unruly members and at others sat for
hours looking at these fluttering hands as if trying to discover
by what strange mechanism they were moved. And one night Gervaise
found him sitting in this way with great tears pouring down his
withered cheeks.</p>

<p>The last summer of his life was especially trying to Coupeau.
His voice was entirely changed; he was deaf in one ear, and some
days he could not see and was obliged to feel his way up&ndash;
and downstairs as if he were blind. He suffered from maddening
headaches, and sudden pains would dart through his limbs, causing
him to snatch at a chair for support. Sometimes after one of
these attacks his arm would be paralyzed for twenty-four
hours.</p>

<p>He would lie in bed with even his head wrapped up, silent and
moody, like some suffering animal. Then came incipient madness
and fever&mdash;tearing everything to pieces that came in his
way&mdash;or he would weep and moan, declaring that no one loved
him, that he was a burden to his wife. One evening when his wife
and daughter came in he was not in his bed; in his place lay the
bolster carefully tucked in. They found him at last crouched on
the floor under the bed, with his teeth chattering with cold and
fear. He told them he had been attacked by assassins.</p>

<p>The two women coaxed him back to bed as if he had been a
baby.</p>

<p>Coupeau knew but one remedy for all this, and that was a good
stout morning dram. His memory had long since fled; his brain had
softened. When Nana appeared after an absence of six weeks he
thought she had been on an errand around the corner. She met him
in the street, too, very often now, without fear, for he passed
without recognizing her. One night in the autumn Nana went out,
saying she wanted some baked pears from the fruiterer's. She felt
the cold weather coming on, and she did not care to sit before a
cold stove. The winter before she went out for two sous' worth of
tobacco and came back in a month's time; they thought she would
do the same now, but they were mistaken. Winter came and went, as
did the spring, and even when June arrived they had seen and
heard nothing of her.</p>

<p>She was evidently comfortable somewhere, and the Coupeaus,
feeling certain that she would never return, had sold her bed; it
was very much in their way, and they could drink up the six
francs it brought.</p>

<p>One morning Virginie called to Gervaise as the latter passed
the shop and begged her to come in and help a little, as Lantier
had had two friends to supper the night before, and Gervaise
washed the dishes while Lantier sat in the shop smoking.
Presently he said:</p>

<p>"Oh, Gervaise, I saw Nana the other night."</p>

<p>Virginie, who was behind the counter, opening and shutting
drawer after drawer, with a face that lengthened as she found
each empty, shook her fist at him indignantly.</p>

<p>She had begun to think he saw Nana very often. She did not
speak, but Mme Lerat, who had just come in, said with a
significant look:</p>

<p>"And where did you see her?"</p>

<p>"Oh, in a carriage," answered Lantier with a laugh. "And I was
on the sidewalk." He turned toward Gervaise and went on:</p>

<p>"Yes, she was in a carriage, dressed beautifully. I did not
recognize her at first, but she kissed her hand to me. Her friend
this time must be a vicomte at the least. She looked as happy as
a queen."</p>

<p>Gervaise wiped the plate in her hands, rubbing it long and
carefully, though it had long since been dry. Virginie, with
wrinkled brows, wondered how she could pay two notes which fell
due the next day, while Lantier, fat and hearty from the sweets
he had devoured, asked himself if these drawers and jars would be
filled up again or if the ruin he anticipated was so near at hand
that he would be compelled to pull up stakes at once. There was
not another praline for him to crunch, not even a gumdrop.</p>

<p>When Gervaise went back to her room she found Coupeau sitting
on the side of the bed, weeping and moaning. She took a chair
near by and looked at him without speaking.</p>

<p>"I have news for you," she said at last. "Your daughter has
been seen. She is happy and comfortable. Would that I were in her
place!"</p>

<p>Coupeau was looking down on the floor intently. He raised his
head and said with an idiotic laugh:</p>

<p>"Do as you please, my dear; don't let me be any hindrance to
you. When you are dressed up you are not so bad looking after
all."
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2>CHAPTER XII<br/>
POVERTY AND DEGRADATION</h2>

<p>The weather was intensely cold about the middle of January.
Gervaise had not been able to pay her rent, due on the first. She
had little or no work and consequently no food to speak of. The
sky was dark and gloomy and the air heavy with the coming of a
storm. Gervaise thought it barely possible that her husband might
come in with a little money. After all, everything is possible,
and he had said that he would work. Gervaise after a little, by
dint of dwelling on this thought, had come to consider it a
certainty. Yes, Coupeau would bring home some money, and they
would have a good, hot, comfortable dinner. As to herself, she
had given up trying to get work, for no one would have her. This
did not much trouble her, however, for she had arrived at that
point when the mere exertion of moving had become intolerable to
her. She now lay stretched on the bed, for she was warmer
there.</p>

<p>Gervaise called it a bed. In reality it was only a pile of
straw in the corner, for she had sold her bed and all her
furniture. She occasionally swept the straw together with a
broom, and, after all, it was neither dustier nor dirtier than
everything else in the place. On this straw, therefore, Gervaise
now lay with her eyes wide open. How long, she wondered, could
people live without eating? She was not hungry, but there was a
strange weight at the pit of her stomach. Her haggard eyes
wandered about the room in search of anything she could sell. She
vaguely wished someone would buy the spider webs which hung in
all the corners. She knew them to be very good for cuts, but she
doubted if they had any market value.</p>

<p>Tired of this contemplation, she got up and took her one chair
to the window and looked out into the dingy courtyard.</p>

<p>Her landlord had been there that day and declared he would
wait only one week for his money, and if it were not forthcoming
he would turn them into the street. It drove her wild to see him
stand in his heavy overcoat and tell her so coldly that he would
pack her off at once. She hated him with a vindictive hatred, as
she did her fool of a husband and the Lorilleuxs and Poissons. In
fact, she hated everyone on that especial day.</p>

<p>Unfortunately people can't live without eating, and before the
woman's famished eyes floated visions of food. Not of dainty
little dishes. She had long since ceased to care for those and
ate all she could get without being in the least fastidious in
regard to its quality. When she had a little money she bought a
bullock's heart or a bit of cheese or some beans, and sometimes
she begged from a restaurant and made a sort of panada of the
crusts they gave her, which she cooked on a neighbor's stove. She
was quite willing to dispute with a dog for a bone. Once the
thought of such things would have disgusted her, but at that time
she did not&mdash;for three days in succession&mdash;go without a
morsel of food. She remembered how last week Coupeau had stolen a
half loaf of bread and sold it, or rather exchanged it, for
liquor.</p>

<p>She sat at the window, looking at the pale sky, and finally
fell asleep. She dreamed that she was out in a snowstorm and
could not find her way home. She awoke with a start and saw that
night was coming on. How long the days are when one's stomach is
empty! She waited for Coupeau and the relief he would bring.</p>

<p>The clock struck in the next room. Could it be possible? Was
it only three? Then she began to cry. How could she ever wait
until seven? After another half-hour of suspense she started up.
Yes, they might say what they pleased, but she, at least, would
try to borrow ten sous from the Lorilleuxs.</p>

<p>There was a continual borrowing of small sums in this corridor
during the winter, but no matter what was the emergency no one
ever dreamed of applying to the Lorilleuxs. Gervaise summoned all
her courage and rapped at the door.</p>

<p>"Come in!" cried a sharp voice.</p>

<p>How good it was there! Warm and bright with the glow of the
forge. And Gervaise smelled the soup, too, and it made her feel
faint and sick.</p>

<p>"Ah, it is you, is it?" said Mme Lorilleux. "What do you
want?"</p>

<p>Gervaise hesitated. The application for ten sous stuck in her
throat, because she saw Boche seated by the stove.</p>

<p>"What do you want?" asked Lorilleux, in his turn.</p>

<p>"Have you seen Coupeau?" stammered Gervaise. "I thought he was
here."</p>

<p>His sister answered with a sneer that they rarely saw Coupeau.
They were not rich enough to offer him as many glasses of wine as
he wanted in these days.</p>

<p>Gervaise stammered out a disconnected sentence.</p>

<p>He had promised to come home. She needed food; she needed
money.</p>

<p>A profound silence followed. Mme Lorilleux fanned her fire,
and her husband bent more closely over his work, while Boche
smiled with an expectant air.</p>

<p>"If I could have ten sous," murmured Gervaise.</p>

<p>The silence continued.</p>

<p>"If you would lend them to me," said Gervaise, "I would give
them back in the morning."</p>

<p>Mme Lorilleux turned and looked her full in the face, thinking
to herself that if she yielded once the next day it would be
twenty sous, and who could tell where it would stop?</p>

<p>"But, my dear," she cried, "you know we have no money and no
prospect of any; otherwise, of course, we would oblige you."</p>

<p>"Certainly," said Lorilleux, "the heart is willing, but the
pockets are empty."</p>

<p>Gervaise bowed her head, but she did not leave instantly. She
looked at the gold wire on which her sister-in-law was working
and at that in the hands of Lorilleux and thought that it would
take a mere scrap to give her a good dinner. On that day the room
was very dirty and filled with charcoal dust, but she saw it
resplendent with riches like the shop of a money-changer, and she
said once more in a low, soft voice:</p>

<p>"I will bring back the ten sous. I will, indeed!" Tears were
in her eyes, but she was determined not to say that she had eaten
nothing for twenty-four hours.</p>

<p>"I can't tell you how much I need it," she continued.</p>

<p>The husband and wife exchanged a look. Wooden Legs begging at
their door! Well! Well! Who would have thought it? Why had they
not known it was she when they rashly called out, "Come in?"
Really, they could not allow such people to cross their
threshold; there was too much that was valuable in the room. They
had several times distrusted Gervaise; she looked about so
queerly, and now they would not take their eyes off her.</p>

<p>Gervaise went toward Lorilleux as she spoke.</p>

<p>"Take care!" he said roughly. "You will carry off some of the
particles of gold on the soles of your shoes. It looks really as
if you had greased them!"</p>

<p>Gervaise drew back. She leaned against the
<i>étagère</i> for a moment and, seeing that her
sister-in-law's eyes were fixed on her hands, she opened them and
said in a gentle, weary voice&mdash;the voice of a woman who had
ceased to struggle:</p>

<p>"I have taken nothing. You can look for yourself."</p>

<p>And she went away; the warmth of the place and the smell of
the soup were unbearable.</p>

<p>The Lorilleuxs shrugged their shoulders as the door closed.
They hoped they had seen the last of her face. She had brought
all her misfortunes on her own head, and she had, therefore, no
right to expect any assistance from them. Boche joined in these
animadversions, and all three considered themselves avenged for
the blue shop and all the rest.</p>

<p>"I know her!" said Mme Lorilleux. "If I had lent her the ten
sous she wanted she would have spent it in liquor."</p>

<p>Gervaise crawled down the corridor with slipshod shoes and
slouching shoulders, but at her door she hesitated; she could not
go in: she was afraid. She would walk up and down a
little&mdash;that would keep her warm. As she passed she looked
in at Father Bru, but to her surprise he was not there, and she
asked herself with a pang of jealousy if anyone could possibly
have asked him out to dine. When she reached the Bijards' she
heard a groan. She went in.</p>

<p>"What is the matter?" she said.</p>

<p>The room was very clean and in perfect order. Lalie that very
morning had swept and arranged everything. In vain did the cold
blast of poverty blow through that chamber and bring with it dirt
and disorder. Lalie was always there; she cleaned and scrubbed
and gave to everything a look of gentility. There was little
money but much cleanliness within those four walls.</p>

<p>The two children were cutting out pictures in a corner, but
Lalie was in bed, lying very straight and pale, with the sheet
pulled over her chin.</p>

<p>"What is the matter?" asked Gervaise anxiously.</p>

<p>Lalie slowly lifted her white lids and tried to speak.</p>

<p>"Nothing," she said faintly; "nothing, I assure you!" Then as
her eyes closed she added:</p>

<p>"I am only a little lazy and am taking my ease."</p>

<p>But her face bore the traces of such frightful agony that
Gervaise fell on her knees by the side of the bed. She knew that
the child had had a cough for a month, and she saw the blood
trickling from the corners of her mouth.</p>

<p>"It is not my fault," Lalie murmured. "I thought I was strong
enough, and I washed the floor. I could not finish the windows
though. Everything but those are clean. But I was so tired that I
was obliged to lie down&mdash;"</p>

<p>She interrupted herself to say:</p>

<p>"Please see that my children are not cutting themselves with
the scissors."</p>

<p>She started at the sound of a heavy step on the stairs. Her
father noisily pushed open the door. As usual he had drunk too
much, and in his eyes blazed the lurid flames kindled by
alcohol.</p>

<p>When he saw Lalie lying down he walked to the corner and took
up the long whip, from which he slowly unwound the lash.</p>

<p>"This is a good joke!" he said. "The idea of your daring to go
to bed at this hour. Come, up with you!"</p>

<p>He snapped the whip over the bed, and the child murmured
softly:</p>

<p>"Do not strike me, Papa. I am sure you will be sorry if you
do. Do not strike me!"</p>

<p>"Up with you!" he cried. "Up with you!"</p>

<p>Then she answered faintly:</p>

<p>"I cannot, for I am dying."</p>

<p>Gervaise had snatched the whip from Bijard, who stood with his
under jaw dropped, glaring at his daughter. What could the little
fool mean? Whoever heard of a child dying like that when she had
not even been sick? Oh, she was lying!</p>

<p>"You will see that I am telling you the truth," she replied.
"I did not tell you as long as I could help it. Be kind to me
now, Papa, and say good-by as if you loved me."</p>

<p>Bijard passed his hand over his eyes. She did look very
strangely&mdash;her face was that of a grown woman. The presence
of death in that cramped room sobered him suddenly. He looked
around with the air of a man who had been suddenly awakened from
a dream. He saw the two little ones clean and happy and the room
neat and orderly.</p>

<p>He fell into a chair.</p>

<p>"Dear little mother!" he murmured. "Dear little mother!"</p>

<p>This was all he said, but it was very sweet to Lalie, who had
never been spoiled by overpraise. She comforted him. She told him
how grieved she was to go away and leave him before she had
entirely brought up her children. He would watch over them, would
he not? And in her dying voice she gave him some little details
in regard to their clothes. He&mdash;the alcohol having regained
its power&mdash;listened with round eyes of wonder.</p>

<p>After a long silence Lalie spoke again:</p>

<p>"We owe four francs and seven sous to the baker. He must be
paid. Madame Goudron has an iron that belongs to us; you must not
forget it. This evening I was not able to make the soup, but
there are bread and cold potatoes."</p>

<p>As long as she breathed the poor little mite continued to be
the mother of the family. She died because her breast was too
small to contain so great a heart, and that he lost this precious
treasure was entirely her father's fault. He, wretched creature,
had kicked her mother to death and now, just as surely, murdered
his daughter.</p>

<p>Gervaise tried to keep back her tears. She held Lalie's hands,
and as the bedclothes slipped away she rearranged them. In doing
so she caught a glimpse of the poor little figure. The sight
might have drawn tears from a stone. Lalie wore only a tiny
chemise over her bruised and bleeding flesh; marks of a lash
striped her sides; a livid spot was on her right arm, and from
head to foot she was one bruise.</p>

<p>Gervaise was paralyzed at the sight. She wondered, if there
were a God above, how He could have allowed the child to stagger
under so heavy a cross.</p>

<p>"Madame Coupeau," murmured the child, trying to draw the sheet
over her. She was ashamed, ashamed for her father.</p>

<p>Gervaise could not stay there. The child was fast sinking. Her
eyes were fixed on her little ones, who sat in the corner, still
cutting out their pictures. The room was growing dark, and
Gervaise fled from it. Ah, what an awful thing life was! And how
gladly would she throw herself under the wheels of an omnibus, if
that might end it!</p>

<p>Almost unconsciously Gervaise took her way to the shop where
her husband worked or, rather, pretended to work. She would wait
for him and get the money before he had a chance to spend it.</p>

<p>It was a very cold corner where she stood. The sounds of the
carriages and footsteps were strangely muffled by reason of the
fast-falling snow. Gervaise stamped her feet to keep them from
freezing. The people who passed offered few distractions, for
they hurried by with their coat collars turned up to their ears.
But Gervaise saw several women watching the door of the factory
quite as anxiously as herself&mdash;they were wives who, like
herself, probably wished to get hold of a portion of their
husbands' wages. She did not know them, but it required no
introduction to understand their business.</p>

<p>The door of the factory remained firmly shut for some time.
Then it opened to allow the egress of one workman; then two,
three, followed, but these were probably those who, well behaved,
took their wages home to their wives, for they neither retreated
nor started when they saw the little crowd. One woman fell on a
pale little fellow and, plunging her hand into his pocket,
carried off every sou of her husband's earnings, while he, left
without enough to pay for a pint of wine, went off down the
street almost weeping.</p>

<p>Some other men appeared, and one turned back to warn a
comrade, who came gamely and fearlessly out, having put his
silver pieces in his shoes. In vain did his wife look for them in
his pockets; in vain did she scold and coax&mdash;he had no
money, he declared.</p>

<p>Then came another noisy group, elbowing each other in their
haste to reach a cabaret, where they could drink away their
week's wages. These fellows were followed by some shabby men who
were swearing under their breath at the trifle they had received,
having been tipsy and absent more than half the week.</p>

<p>But the saddest sight of all was the grief of a meek little
woman in black, whose husband, a tall, good-looking fellow,
pushed her roughly aside and walked off down the street with his
boon companions, leaving her to go home alone, which she did,
weeping her very heart out as she went.</p>

<p>Gervaise still stood watching the entrance. Where was Coupeau?
She asked some of the men, who teased her by declaring that he
had just gone by the back door. She saw by this time that Coupeau
had lied to her, that he had not been at work that day. She also
saw that there was no dinner for her. There was not a shadow of
hope&mdash;nothing but hunger and darkness and cold.</p>

<p>She toiled up La Rue des Poissonnièrs when she suddenly
heard Coupeau's voice and, glancing in at the window of a
wineshop, she saw him drinking with Mes-Bottes, who had had the
luck to marry the previous summer a woman with some money. He was
now, therefore, well clothed and fed and altogether a happy
mortal and had Coupeau's admiration. Gervaise laid her hands on
her husband's shoulders as he left the cabaret.</p>

<p>"I am hungry," she said softly.</p>

<p>"Hungry, are you? Well then, eat your fist and keep the other
for tomorrow."</p>

<p>"Shall I steal a loaf of bread?" she asked in a dull, dreary
tone.</p>

<p>Mes-Bottes smoothed his chin and said in a conciliatory
voice:</p>

<p>"No, no! Don't do that; it is against the law. But if a woman
manages&mdash;"</p>

<p>Coupeau interrupted him with a coarse laugh.</p>

<p>Yes, a woman, if she had any sense, could always get along,
and it was her own fault if she starved.</p>

<p>And the two men walked on toward the outer boulevard. Gervaise
followed them. Again she said:</p>

<p>"I am hungry. You know I have had nothing to eat. You must
find me something."</p>

<p>He did not answer, and she repeated her words in a tone of
agony.</p>

<p>"Good God!" he exclaimed, turning upon her furiously. "What
can I do? I have nothing. Be off with you, unless you want to be
beaten."</p>

<p>He lifted his fist; she recoiled and said with set teeth:</p>

<p>"Very well then; I will go and find some man who has a
sou."</p>

<p>Coupeau pretended to consider this an excellent joke. Yes of
course she could make a conquest; by gaslight she was still
passably goodlooking. If she succeeded he advised her to dine at
the Capucin, where there was very good eating.</p>

<p>She turned away with livid lips; he called after her:</p>

<p>"Bring some dessert with you, for I love cake. And perhaps you
can induce your friend to give me an old coat, for I swear it is
cold tonight."</p>

<p>Gervaise, with this infernal mirth ringing in her ears,
hurried down the street. She was determined to take this
desperate step. She had only a choice between that and theft, and
she considered that she had a right to dispose of herself as she
pleased. The question of right and wrong did not present itself
very clearly to her eyes. "When one is starving is hardly the
time," she said to herself, "to philosophize." She walked slowly
up and down the boulevard. This part of Paris was crowded now
with new buildings, between whose sculptured facades ran narrow
lanes leading to haunts of squalid misery, which were cheek by
jowl with splendor and wealth.</p>

<p>It seemed strange to Gervaise that among this crowd who
elbowed her there was not one good Christian to divine her
situation and slip some sous into her hand. Her head was dizzy,
and her limbs would hardly bear her weight. At this hour ladies
with hats and well-dressed gentlemen who lived in these fine new
houses were mingled with the people&mdash;with the men and women
whose faces were pale and sickly from the vitiated air of the
workshops in which they passed their lives. Another day of toil
was over, but the days came too often and were too long. One
hardly had time to turn over in one's sleep when the everlasting
grind began again.</p>

<p>Gervaise went with the crowd. No one looked at her, for the
men were all hurrying home to their dinner. Suddenly she looked
up and beheld the Hôtel Boncœur. It was empty, the
shutters and doors covered with placards and the whole facade
weather-stained and decaying. It was there in that hotel that the
seeds of her present life had been sown. She stood still and
looked up at the window of the room she had occupied and recalled
her youth passed with Lantier and the manner in which he had left
her. But she was young then and soon recovered from the blow.
That was twenty years ago, and now what was she?</p>

<p>The sight of the place made her sick, and she turned toward
Montmartre. She passed crowds of workwomen with little parcels in
their hands and children who had been sent to the baker's,
carrying four-pound loaves of bread as tall as themselves, which
looked like shining brown dolls.</p>

<p>By degrees the crowd dispersed, and Gervaise was almost alone.
Everyone was at dinner. She thought how delicious it would be to
lie down and never rise again&mdash;to feel that all toil was
over. And this was the end of her life! Gervaise, amid the pangs
of hunger, thought of some of the fete days she had known and
remembered that she had not always been miserable. Once she was
pretty, fair and fresh. She had been a kind and admired mistress
in her shop. Gentlemen came to it only to see her, and she
vaguely wondered where all this youth and this beauty had
fled.</p>

<p>Again she looked up; she had reached the abattoirs, which were
now being torn down; the fronts were taken away, showing the dark
holes within, the very stones of which reeked with blood. Farther
on was the hospital with its high, gray walls, with two wings
opening out like a huge fan. A door in the wall was the terror of
the whole Quartier&mdash;the Door of the Dead, it was
called&mdash;through which all the bodies were carried.</p>

<p>She hurried past this solid oak door and went down to the
railroad bridge, under which a train had just passed, leaving in
its rear a floating cloud of smoke. She wished she were on that
train which would take her into the country, and she pictured to
herself open spaces and the fresh air and expanse of blue sky;
perhaps she could live a new life there.</p>

<p>As she thought this her weary eyes began to puzzle out in the
dim twilight the words on a printed handbill pasted on one of the
pillars of the arch. She read one&mdash;an advertisement offering
fifty francs for a lost dog. Someone must have loved the creature
very much.</p>

<p>Gervaise turned back again. The street lamps were being lit
and defined long lines of streets and avenues. The restaurants
were all crowded, and people were eating and drinking. Before the
Assommoir stood a crowd waiting their turn and room within, and
as a respectable tradesman passed he said with a shake of the
head that many a man would be drunk that night in Paris. And over
this scene hung the dark sky, low and clouded.</p>

<p>Gervaise wished she had a few sous: she would, in that case,
have gone into this place and drunk until she ceased to feel
hungry, and through the window she watched the still with an
angry consciousness that all her misery and all her pain came
from that. If she had never touched a drop of liquor all might
have been so different.</p>

<p>She started from her reverie; this was the hour of which she
must take advantage. Men had dined and were comparatively
amiable. She looked around her and toward the trees
where&mdash;under the leafless branches&mdash;she saw more than
one female figure. Gervaise watched them, determined to do what
they did. Her heart was in her throat; it seemed to her that she
was dreaming a bad dream.</p>

<p>She stood for some fifteen minutes; none of the men who passed
looked at her. Finally she moved a little and spoke to one who,
with his hands in his pockets, was whistling as he walked.</p>

<p>"Sir," she said in a low voice, "please listen to me."</p>

<p>The man looked at her from head to foot and went on whistling
louder than before.</p>

<p>Gervaise grew bolder. She forgot everything except the pangs
of hunger. The women under the trees walked up and down with the
regularity of wild animals in a cage.</p>

<p>"Sir," she said again, "please listen."</p>

<p>But the man went on. She walked toward the Hôtel
Boncœur again, past the hospital, which was now brilliantly lit.
There she turned and went back over the same ground&mdash;the
dismal ground between the slaughterhouses and the place where the
sick lay dying. With these two places she seemed to feel bound by
some mysterious tie.</p>

<p>"Sir, please listen!"</p>

<p>She saw her shadow on the ground as she stood near a street
lamp. It was a grotesque shadow&mdash;grotesque because of her
ample proportions. Her limp had become, with time and her
additional weight, a very decided deformity, and as she moved the
lengthening shadow of herself seemed to be creeping along the
sides of the houses with bows and curtsies of mock reverence.
Never before had she realized the change in herself. She was
fascinated by this shadow. It was very droll, she thought, and
she wondered if the men did not think so too.</p>

<p>"Sir, please listen!"</p>

<p>It was growing late. Man after man, in a beastly state of
intoxication, reeled past her; quarrels and disputes filled the
air.</p>

<p>Gervaise walked on, half asleep. She was conscious of little
except that she was starving. She wondered where her daughter was
and what she was eating, but it was too much trouble to think,
and she shivered and crawled on. As she lifted her face she felt
the cutting wind, accompanied by the snow, fine and dry, like
gravel. The storm had come.</p>

<p>People were hurrying past her, but she saw one man walking
slowly. She went toward him.</p>

<p>"Sir, please listen!"</p>

<p>The man stopped. He did not seem to notice what she said but
extended his hand and murmured in a low voice:</p>

<p>"Charity, if you please!"</p>

<p>The two looked at each other. Merciful heavens! It was Father
Bru begging and Mme Coupeau doing worse. They stood looking at
each other&mdash;equals in misery. The aged workman had been
trying to make up his mind all the evening to beg, and the first
person he stopped was a woman as poor as himself! This was indeed
the irony of fate. Was it not a pity to have toiled for fifty
years and then to beg his bread? To have been one of the most
flourishing laundresses in Paris and then to make her bed in the
gutter? They looked at each other once more, and without a word
each went their own way through the fast-falling snow, which
blinded Gervaise as she struggled on, the wind wrapping her thin
skirts around her legs so that she could hardly walk.</p>

<p>Suddenly an absolute whirlwind struck her and bore her
breathless and helpless along&mdash;she did not even know in what
direction. When at last she was able to open her eyes she could
see nothing through the blinding snow, but she heard a step and
saw the outlines of a man's figure. She snatched him by the
blouse.</p>

<p>"Sir," she said, "please listen."</p>

<p>The man turned. It was Goujet.</p>

<p>Ah, what had she done to be thus tortured and humiliated? Was
God in heaven an angry God always? This was the last dreg of
bitterness in her cup. She saw her shadow: her limp, she felt,
made her walk like an intoxicated woman, which was indeed hard,
when she had not swallowed a drop.</p>

<p>Goujet looked at her while the snow whitened his yellow
beard.</p>

<p>"Come!" he said.</p>

<p>And he walked on, she following him. Neither spoke.</p>

<p>Poor Mme Goujet had died in October of acute rheumatism, and
her son continued to reside in the same apartment. He had this
night been sitting with a sick friend.</p>

<p>He entered, lit a lamp and turned toward Gervaise, who stood
humbly on the threshold.</p>

<p>"Come in!" he said in a low voice, as if his mother could have
heard him.</p>

<p>The first room was that of Mme Goujet, which was unchanged
since her death. Near the window stood her frame, apparently
ready for the old lady. The bed was carefully made, and she could
have slept there had she returned from the cemetery to spend a
night with her son. The room was clean, sweet and orderly.</p>

<p>"Come in," repeated Goujet.</p>

<p>Gervaise entered with the air of a woman who is startled at
finding herself in a respectable place. He was pale and
trembling. They crossed his mother's room softly, and when
Gervaise stood within his own he closed the door.</p>

<p>It was the same room in which he had lived ever since she knew
him&mdash;small and almost virginal in its simplicity. Gervaise
dared not move.</p>

<p>Goujet snatched her in his arms, but she pushed him away
faintly.</p>

<p>The stove was still hot, and a dish was on the top of it.
Gervaise looked toward it. Goujet understood. He placed the dish
on the table, poured her out some wine and cut a slice of
bread.</p>

<p>"Thank you," she said. "How good you are!"</p>

<p>She trembled to that degree that she could hardly hold her
fork. Hunger gave her eyes the fierceness of a famished beast and
to her head the tremulous motion of senility. After eating a
potato she burst into tears but continued to eat, with the tears
streaming down her cheeks and her chin quivering.</p>

<p>"Will you have some more bread?" he asked. She said no; she
said yes; she did not know what she said.</p>

<p>And he stood looking at her in the clear light of the lamp.
How old and shabby she was! The heat was melting the snow on her
hair and clothing, and water was dripping from all her garments.
Her hair was very gray and roughened by the wind. Where was the
pretty white throat he so well remembered? He recalled the days
when he first knew her, when her skin was so delicate and she
stood at her table, briskly moving the hot irons to and fro. He
thought of the time when she had come to the forge and of the joy
with which he would have welcomed her then to his room. And now
she was there!</p>

<p>She finished her bread amid great silent tears and then rose
to her feet.</p>

<p>Goujet took her hand.</p>

<p>"I love you, Madame Gervaise; I love you still," he cried.</p>

<p>"Do not say that," she exclaimed, "for it is impossible."</p>

<p>He leaned toward her.</p>

<p>"Will you allow me to kiss you?" he asked respectfully.</p>

<p>She did not know what to say, so great was her emotion.</p>

<p>He kissed her gravely and solemnly and then pressed his lips
upon her gray hair. He had never kissed anyone since his mother's
death, and Gervaise was all that remained to him of the past.</p>

<p>He turned away and, throwing himself on his bed, sobbed aloud.
Gervaise could not endure this. She exclaimed:</p>

<p>"I love you, Monsieur Goujet, and I understand. Farewell!"</p>

<p>And she rushed through Mme Goujet's room and then through the
street to her home. The house was all dark, and the arched door
into the courtyard looked like huge, gaping jaws. Could this be
the house where she once desired to reside? Had she been deaf in
those days, not to have heard that wail of despair which pervaded
the place from top to bottom? From the day when she first set her
foot within the house she had steadily gone downhill.</p>

<p>Yes, it was a frightful way to live&mdash;so many people
herded together, to become the prey of cholera or vice. She
looked at the courtyard and fancied it a cemetery surrounded by
high walls. The snow lay white within it. She stepped over the
usual stream from the dyer's, but this time the stream was black
and opened for itself a path through the white snow. The stream
was the color of her thoughts. But she remembered when both were
rosy.</p>

<p>As she toiled up the six long flights in the darkness she
laughed aloud. She recalled her old dream&mdash;to work quietly,
have plenty to eat, a little home to herself, where she could
bring up her children, never to be beaten, and to die in her bed!
It was droll how things had turned out. She worked no more; she
had nothing to eat; she lived amid dirt and disorder. Her
daughter had gone to the bad, and her husband beat her whenever
he pleased. As for dying in her bed, she had none. Should she
throw herself out of the window and find one on the pavement
below?</p>

<p>She had not been unreasonable in her wishes, surely. She had
not asked of heaven an income of thirty thousand francs or a
carriage and horses. This was a queer world! And then she laughed
again as she remembered that she had once said that after she had
worked for twenty years she would retire into the country.</p>

<p>Yes, she would go into the country, for she should soon have
her little green corner in Père-Lachaise.</p>

<p>Her poor brain was disturbed. She had bidden an eternal
farewell to Goujet. They would never see each other again. All
was over between them&mdash;love and friendship too.</p>

<p>As she passed the Bijards' she looked in and saw Lalie lying
dead, happy and at peace. It was well with the child.</p>

<p>"She is lucky," muttered Gervaise.</p>

<p>At this moment she saw a gleam of light under the undertaker's
door. She threw it wide open with a wild desire that he should
take her as well as Lalie. Bazonge had come in that night more
tipsy than usual and had thrown his hat and cloak in the corner,
while he lay in the middle of the floor.</p>

<p>He started up and called out:</p>

<p>"Shut that door! And don't stand there&mdash;it is too cold.
What do you want?"</p>

<p>Then Gervaise, with arms outstretched, not knowing or caring
what she said, began to entreat him with passionate
vehemence:</p>

<p>"Oh, take me!" she cried. "I can bear it no longer. Take me, I
implore you!"</p>

<p>And she knelt before him, a lurid light blazing in her haggard
eyes.</p>

<p>Father Bazonge, with garments stained by the dust of the
cemetery, seemed to her as glorious as the sun. But the old man,
yet half asleep, rubbed his eyes and could not understand
her.</p>

<p>"What are you talking about?" he muttered.</p>

<p>"Take me," repeated Gervaise, more earnestly than before. "Do
you remember one night when I rapped on the partition? Afterward
I said I did not, but I was stupid then and afraid. But I am not
afraid now. Here, take my hands&mdash;they are not cold with
terror. Take me and put me to sleep, for I have but this one wish
now."</p>

<p>Bazonge, feeling that it was not proper to argue with a lady,
said:</p>

<p>"You are right. I have buried three women today, who would
each have given me a jolly little sum out of gratitude, if they
could have put their hands in their pockets. But you see, my dear
woman, it is not such an easy thing you are asking of me."</p>

<p>"Take me!" cried Gervaise. "Take me! I want to go away!"</p>

<p>"But there is a certain little operation first, you
know&mdash;" And he pretended to choke and rolled up his
eyes.</p>

<p>Gervaise staggered to her feet. He, too, rejected her and
would have nothing to do with her. She crawled into her room and
threw herself on her straw. She was sorry she had eaten anything
and delayed the work of starvation.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2>CHAPTER XIII<br/>
THE HOSPITAL</h2>

<p>The next day Gervaise received ten francs from her son
Etienne, who had steady work. He occasionally sent her a little
money, knowing that there was none too much of that commodity in
his poor mother's pocket.</p>

<p>She cooked her dinner and ate it alone, for Coupeau did not
appear, nor did she hear a word of his whereabouts for nearly a
week. Finally a printed paper was given her which frightened her
at first, but she was soon relieved to find that it simply
conveyed to her the information that her husband was at
Sainte-Anne's again.</p>

<p>Gervaise was in no way disturbed. Coupeau knew the way back
well enough; he would return in due season. She soon heard that
he and Mes-Bottes had spent the whole week in dissipation, and
she even felt a little angry that they had not seen fit to offer
her a glass of wine with all their feasting and carousing.</p>

<p>On Sunday, as Gervaise had a nice little repast ready for the
evening, she decided that an excursion would give her an
appetite. The letter from the asylum stared her in the face and
worried her. The snow had melted; the sky was gray and soft, and
the air was fresh. She started at noon, as the days were now
short and Sainte-Anne's was a long distance off, but as there
were a great many people in the street, she was amused.</p>

<p>When she reached the hospital she heard a strange story. It
seems that Coupeau&mdash;how, no one could say&mdash;had escaped
from the hospital and had been found under the bridge. He had
thrown himself over the parapet, declaring that armed men were
driving him with the point of their bayonets.</p>

<p>One of the nurses took Gervaise up the stairs. At the head she
heard terrific howls which froze the marrow in her bones.</p>

<p>"It is he!" said the nurse.</p>

<p>"He? Whom do you mean?"</p>

<p>"I mean your husband. He has gone on like that ever since day
before yesterday, and he dances all the time too. You will
see!"</p>

<p>Ah, what a sight it was! The cell was cushioned from the floor
to the ceiling, and on the floor were mattresses on which Coupeau
danced and howled in his ragged blouse. The sight was terrific.
He threw himself wildly against the window and then to the other
side of the cell, shaking hands as if he wished to break them off
and fling them in defiance at the whole world. These wild motions
are sometimes imitated, but no one who has not seen the real and
terrible sight can imagine its horror.</p>

<p>"What is it? What is it?" gasped Gervaise.</p>

<p>A house surgeon, a fair and rosy youth, was sitting, calmly
taking notes. The case was a peculiar one and had excited a great
deal of attention among the physicians attached to the
hospital.</p>

<p>"You can stay awhile," he said, "but keep very quiet. He will
not recognize you, however."</p>

<p>Coupeau, in fact, did not seem to notice his wife, who had not
yet seen his face. She went nearer. Was that really he? She never
would have known him with his bloodshot eyes and distorted
features. His skin was so hot that the air was heated around him
and was as if it were varnished&mdash;shining and damp with
perspiration. He was dancing, it is true, but as if on burning
plowshares; not a motion seemed to be voluntary.</p>

<p>Gervaise went to the young surgeon, who was beating a tune on
the back of his chair.</p>

<p>"Will he get well, sir?" she said.</p>

<p>The surgeon shook his head.</p>

<p>"What is he saying? Hark! He is talking now."</p>

<p>"Just be quiet, will you?" said the young man. "I wish to
listen."</p>

<p>Coupeau was speaking fast and looking all about, as if he were
examining the underbrush in the Bois de Vincennes.</p>

<p>"Where is it now?" he exclaimed and then, straightening
himself, he looked off into the distance.</p>

<p>"It is a fair," he exclaimed, "and lanterns in the trees, and
the water is running everywhere: fountains, cascades and all
sorts of things."</p>

<p>He drew a long breath, as if enjoying the delicious freshness
of the air.</p>

<p>By degrees, however, his features contracted again with pain,
and he ran quickly around the wall of his cell.</p>

<p>"More trickery," he howled. "I knew it!"</p>

<p>He started back with a hoarse cry; his teeth chattered with
terror.</p>

<p>"No, I will not throw myself over! All that water would drown
me! No, I will not!"</p>

<p>"I am going," said Gervaise to the surgeon. "I cannot stay
another moment."</p>

<p>She was very pale. Coupeau kept up his infernal dance while
she tottered down the stairs, followed by his hoarse voice.</p>

<p>How good it was to breathe the fresh air outside!</p>

<p>That evening everyone in the huge house in which Coupeau had
lived talked of his strange disease. The concierge, crazy to hear
the details, condescended to invite Gervaise to take a glass of
cordial, forgetting that he had turned a cold shoulder upon her
for many weeks.</p>

<p>Mme Lorilleux and Mme Poisson were both there also. Boche had
heard of a cabinetmaker who had danced the polka until he died.
He had drunk absinthe.</p>

<p>Gervaise finally, not being able to make them understand her
description, asked for the table to be moved and there, in the
center of the loge, imitated her husband, making frightful leaps
and horrible contortions.</p>

<p>"Yes, that was what he did!"</p>

<p>And then everybody said it was not possible that man could
keep up such violent exercise for even three hours.</p>

<p>Gervaise told them to go and see if they did not believe her.
But Mme Lorilleux declared that nothing would induce her to set
foot within Sainte-Anne's, and Virginie, whose face had grown
longer and longer with each successive week that the shop got
deeper into debt, contented herself with murmuring that life was
not always gay&mdash;in fact, in her opinion, it was a pretty
dismal thing. As the wine was finished, Gervaise bade them all
good night. When she was not speaking she had sat with fixed,
distended eyes. Coupeau was before them all the time.</p>

<p>The next day she said to herself when she rose that she would
never go to the hospital again; she could do no good. But as
midday arrived she could stay away no longer and started forth,
without a thought of the length of the walk, so great were her
mingled curiosity and anxiety.</p>

<p>She was not obliged to ask a question; she heard the frightful
sounds at the very foot of the stairs. The keeper, who was
carrying a cup of tisane across the corridor, stopped when he saw
her.</p>

<p>"He keeps it up well!" he said.</p>

<p>She went in but stood at the door, as she saw there were
people there. The young surgeon had surrendered his chair to an
elderly gentleman wearing several decorations. He was the chief
physician of the hospital, and his eyes were like gimlets.</p>

<p>Gervaise tried to see Coupeau over the bald head of that
gentleman. Her husband was leaping and dancing with undiminished
strength. The perspiration poured more constantly from his brow
now; that was all. His feet had worn holes in the mattress with
his steady tramp from window to wall.</p>

<p>Gervaise asked herself why she had come back. She had been
accused the evening before of exaggerating the picture, but she
had not made it strong enough. The next time she imitated him she
could do it better. She listened to what the physicians were
saying: the house surgeon was giving the details of the night
with many words which she did not understand, but she gathered
that Coupeau had gone on in the same way all night. Finally he
said this was the wife of the patient. Wherefore the surgeon in
chief turned and interrogated her with the air of a police
judge.</p>

<p>"Did this man's father drink?"</p>

<p>"A little, sir. Just as everybody does. He fell from a roof
when he had been drinking and was killed."</p>

<p>"Did his mother drink?"</p>

<p>"Yes sir&mdash;that is, a little now and then. He had a
brother who died in convulsions, but the others are very
healthy."</p>

<p>The surgeon looked at her and said coldly:</p>

<p>"You drink too?"</p>

<p>Gervaise attempted to defend herself and deny the
accusation.</p>

<p>"You drink," he repeated, "and see to what it leads. Someday
you will be here, and like this."</p>

<p>She leaned against the wall, utterly overcome. The physician
turned away. He knelt on the mattress and carefully watched
Coupeau; he wished to see if his feet trembled as much as his
hands. His extremities vibrated as if on wires. The disease was
creeping on, and the peculiar shivering seemed to be under the
skin&mdash;it would cease for a minute or two and then begin
again. The belly and the shoulders trembled like water just on
the point of boiling.</p>

<p>Coupeau seemed to suffer more than the evening before. His
complaints were curious and contradictory. A million pins were
pricking him. There was a weight under the skin; a cold, wet
animal was crawling over him. Then there were other creatures on
his shoulder.</p>

<p>"I am thirsty," he groaned; "so thirsty."</p>

<p>The house surgeon took a glass of lemonade from a tray and
gave it to him. He seized the glass in both hands, drank one
swallow, spilling the whole of it at the same time. He at once
spat it out in disgust.</p>

<p>"It is brandy!" he exclaimed.</p>

<p>Then the surgeon, on a sign from his chief, gave him some
water, and Coupeau did the same thing.</p>

<p>"It is brandy!" he cried. "Brandy! Oh, my God!"</p>

<p>For twenty-four hours he had declared that everything he
touched to his lips was brandy, and with tears begged for
something else, for it burned his throat, he said. Beef tea was
brought to him; he refused it, saying it smelled of alcohol. He
seemed to suffer intense and constant agony from the poison which
he vowed was in the air. He asked why people were allowed to rub
matches all the time under his nose, to choke him with their vile
fumes.</p>

<p>The physicians watched Coupeau with care and interest. The
phantoms which had hitherto haunted him by night now appeared
before him at midday. He saw spiders' webs hanging from the wall
as large as the sails of a man-of-war. Then these webs changed to
nets, whose meshes were constantly contracting only to enlarge
again. These nets held black balls, and they, too, swelled and
shrank. Suddenly he cried out:</p>

<p>"The rats! Oh, the rats!"</p>

<p>The balls had been transformed to rats. The vile beasts found
their way through the meshes of the nets and swarmed over the
mattress and then disappeared as suddenly as they came.</p>

<p>The rats were followed by a monkey, who went in and came out
from the wall, each time so near his face that Coupeau started
back in disgust. All this vanished in the twinkling of an eye. He
apparently thought the walls were unsteady and about to fall, for
he uttered shriek after shriek of agony.</p>

<p>"Fire! Fire!" he screamed. "They can't stand long. They are
shaking! Fire! Fire! The whole heavens are bright with the light!
Help! Help!"</p>

<p>His shrieks ended in a convulsed murmur. He foamed at the
mouth. The surgeon in chief turned to the assistant.</p>

<p>"You keep the temperature at forty degrees?" he asked.</p>

<p>"Yes sir."</p>

<p>A dead silence ensued. Then the surgeon shrugged his
shoulders.</p>

<p>"Well, continue the same treatment&mdash;beef tea, milk,
lemonade and quinine as directed. Do not leave him, and send for
me if there is any change."</p>

<p>And he left the room, Gervaise following close at his heels,
seeking an opportunity of asking him if there was no hope. But he
stalked down the corridor with so much dignity that she dared not
approach him.</p>

<p>She stood for a moment, undecided whether she should go back
to Coupeau or not, but hearing him begin again the lamentable cry
for water:</p>

<p>"Water, not brandy!"</p>

<p>She hurried on, feeling that she could endure no more that
day. In the streets the galloping horses made her start with a
strange fear that all the inmates of Sainte-Anne's were at her
heels. She remembered what the physician had said, with what
terrors he had threatened her, and she wondered if she already
had the disease.</p>

<p>When she reached the house the concierge and all the others
were waiting and called her into the loge.</p>

<p>Was Coupeau still alive? they asked.</p>

<p>Boche seemed quite disturbed at her answer, as he had made a
bet that he would not live twenty-four hours. Everyone was
astonished. Mme Lorilleux made a mental calculation:</p>

<p>"Sixty hours," she said. "His strength is extraordinary."</p>

<p>Then Boche begged Gervaise to show them once more what Coupeau
did.</p>

<p>The demand became general, and it was pointed out to her that
she ought not to refuse, for there were two neighbors there who
had not seen her representation the night previous and who had
come in expressly to witness it.</p>

<p>They made a space in the center of the room, and a shiver of
expectation ran through the little crowd.</p>

<p>Gervaise was very reluctant. She was really
afraid&mdash;afraid of making herself ill. She finally made the
attempt but drew back again hastily.</p>

<p>No, she could not; it was quite impossible. Everyone was
disappointed, and Virginie went away.</p>

<p>Then everyone began to talk of the Poissons. A warrant had
been served on them the night before. Poisson was to lose his
place. As to Lantier, he was hovering around a woman who thought
of taking the shop and meant to sell hot tripe. Lantier was in
luck, as usual.</p>

<p>As they talked someone caught sight of Gervaise and pointed
her out to the others. She was at the very back of the loge, her
feet and hands trembling, imitating Coupeau, in fact. They spoke
to her. She stared wildly about, as if awaking from a dream, and
then left the room.</p>

<p>The next day she left the house at noon, as she had done
before. And as she entered Sainte-Anne's she heard the same
terrific sounds.</p>

<p>When she reached the cell she found Coupeau raving mad! He was
fighting in the middle of the cell with invisible enemies. He
tried to hide himself; he talked and he answered, as if there
were twenty persons. Gervaise watched him with distended eyes. He
fancied himself on a roof, laying down the sheets of zinc. He
blew the furnace with his mouth, and he went down on his knees
and made a motion as if he had soldering irons in his hand. He
was troubled by his shoes: it seemed as if he thought they were
dangerous. On the next roofs stood persons who insulted him by
letting quantities of rats loose. He stamped here and there in
his desire to kill them and the spiders too! He pulled away his
clothing to catch the creatures who, he said, intended to burrow
under his skin. In another minute he believed himself to be a
locomotive and puffed and panted. He darted toward the window and
looked down into the street as if he were on a roof.</p>

<p>"Look!" he said. "There is a traveling circus. I see the lions
and the panthers making faces at me. And there is
Clémence. Good God, man, don't fire!"</p>

<p>And he gesticulated to the men who, he said, were pointing
their guns at him.</p>

<p>He talked incessantly, his voice growing louder and louder,
higher and higher.</p>

<p>"Ah, it is you, is it? But please keep your hair out of my
mouth."</p>

<p>And he passed his hand over his face as if to take away the
hair.</p>

<p>"Who is it?" said the keeper.</p>

<p>"My wife, of course."</p>

<p>He looked at the wall, turning his back to Gervaise, who felt
very strange, and looked at the wall to see if she were there! He
talked on.</p>

<p>"You look very fine. Where did you get that dress? Come here
and let me arrange it for you a little. You devil! There he is
again!"</p>

<p>And he leaped at the wall, but the soft cushions threw him
back.</p>

<p>"Whom do you see?" asked the young doctor.</p>

<p>"Lantier! Lantier!"</p>

<p>Gervaise could not endure the eyes of the young man, for the
scene brought back to her so much of her former life.</p>

<p>Coupeau fancied, as he had been thrown back from the wall in
front, that he was now attacked in the rear, and he leaped over
the mattress with the agility of a cat. His respiration grew
shorter and shorter, his eyes starting from their sockets.</p>

<p>"He is killing her!" he shrieked. "Killing her! Just see the
blood!"</p>

<p>He fell back against the wall with his hands wide open before
him, as if he were repelling the approach of some frightful
object. He uttered two long, low groans and then fell flat on the
mattress.</p>

<p>"He is dead! He is dead!" moaned Gervaise.</p>

<p>The keeper lifted Coupeau. No, he was not dead; his bare feet
quivered with a regular motion. The surgeon in chief came in,
bringing two colleagues. The three men stood in grave silence,
watching the man for some time. They uncovered him, and Gervaise
saw his shoulders and back.</p>

<p>The tremulous motion had now taken complete possession of the
body as well as the limbs, and a strange ripple ran just under
the skin.</p>

<p>"He is asleep," said the surgeon in chief, turning to his
colleagues.</p>

<p>Coupeau's eyes were closed, and his face twitched
convulsively. Coupeau might sleep, but his feet did nothing of
the kind.</p>

<p>Gervaise, seeing the doctors lay their hands on Coupeau's
body, wished to do the same. She approached softly and placed her
hand on his shoulder and left it there for a minute.</p>

<p>What was going on there? A river seemed hurrying on under that
skin. It was the liquor of the Assommoir, working like a mole
through muscle, nerves, bone and marrow.</p>

<p>The doctors went away, and Gervaise, at the end of another
hour, said to the young surgeon:</p>

<p>"He is dead, sir."</p>

<p>But the surgeon, looking at the feet, said: "No," for those
poor feet were still dancing.</p>

<p>Another hour, and yet another passed. Suddenly the feet were
stiff and motionless, and the young surgeon turned to
Gervaise.</p>

<p>"He is dead," he said.</p>

<p>Death alone had stopped those feet.</p>

<p>When Gervaise went back she was met at the door by a crowd of
people who wished to ask her questions, she thought.</p>

<p>"He is dead," she said quietly as she moved on.</p>

<p>But no one heard her. They had their own tale to tell then.
How Poisson had nearly murdered Lantier. Poisson was a tiger, and
he ought to have seen what was going on long before. And Boche
said the woman had taken the shop and that Lantier was, as usual,
in luck again, for he adored tripe.</p>

<p>In the meantime Gervaise went directly to Mme Lerat and Mme
Lorilleux and said faintly:</p>

<p>"He is dead&mdash;after four days of horror."</p>

<p>Then the two sisters were in duty bound to pull out their
handkerchiefs. Their brother had lived a most dissolute life, but
then he was their brother.</p>

<p>Boche shrugged his shoulders and said in an audible voice:</p>

<p>"Pshaw! It is only one drunkard the less!"</p>

<p>After this day Gervaise was not always quite right in her
mind, and it was one of the attractions of the house to see her
act Coupeau.</p>

<p>But her representations were often involuntary. She trembled
at times from head to foot and uttered little spasmodic cries.
She had taken the disease in a modified form at Sainte-Anne's
from looking so long at her husband. But she never became
altogether like him in the few remaining months of her
existence.</p>

<p>She sank lower day by day. As soon as she got a little money
from any source whatever she drank it away at once. Her landlord
decided to turn her out of the room she occupied, and as Father
Bru was discovered dead one day in his den under the stairs, M.
Marescot allowed her to take possession of his quarters. It was
there, therefore, on the old straw bed, that she lay waiting for
death to come. Apparently even Mother Earth would have none of
her. She tried several times to throw herself out of the window,
but death took her by bits, as it were. In fact, no one knew
exactly when she died or exactly what she died of. They spoke of
cold and hunger.</p>

<p>But the truth was she died of utter weariness of life, and
Father Bazonge came the day she was found dead in her den.</p>

<p>Under his arm he carried a coffin, and he was very tipsy and
as gay as a lark.</p>

<p>"It is foolish to be in a hurry, because one always gets what
one wants finally. I am ready to give you all your good pleasure
when your time comes. Some want to go, and some want to stay. And
here is one who wanted to go and was kept waiting."</p>

<p>And when he lifted Gervaise in his great, coarse hands he did
it tenderly. And as he laid her gently in her coffin he murmured
between two hiccups:</p>

<p>"It is I&mdash;my dear, it is I," said this rough consoler of
women. "It is I. Be happy now and sleep quietly, my dear!"</p>

<p>THE END.</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

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