L\'Assommoir

E >> Emile Zola >> L\'Assommoir

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But Coupeau was enchanted with the plan. The rent, he said, had always
been heavy to carry, and now they would gain twenty francs per month.
It was not dear for him, and it would help them decidedly. He told his
wife that she could have two great boxes made in which all the linen
of the _Quartier_ could be piled.

Gervaise still hesitated, questioning Mamma Coupeau with her eyes.
Lantier had long since propitiated the old lady by bringing her
gumdrops for her cough.

"If we could arrange it I am sure--" said Gervaise hesitatingly.

"You are too kind," remonstrated Lantier. "I really feel that it would
be an intrusion."

Coupeau flamed out. Why did she not speak up, he should like to know?
Instead of stammering and behaving like a fool?

"Etienne! Etienne!" he shouted.

The boy was asleep with his head on the table. He started up.

"Listen to me. Say to this gentleman, 'I wish it.' Say just those
words and nothing more."

"I wish it!" stammered Etienne, half asleep.

Everybody laughed. But Lantier almost instantly resumed his solemn
air. He pressed Coupeau's hand cordially.

"I accept your proposition," he said. "It is a most friendly one,
and I thank you in my name and in that of my child."

The next morning Marescot, the owner of the house, happening to call,
Gervaise spoke to him of the matter. At first he absolutely refused
and was as disturbed and angry as if she had asked him to build on a
wing for her especial accommodation. Then after a minute examination
of the premises he ended by giving his consent, only on condition,
however, that he should not be required to pay any portion of the
expense, and the Coupeaus signed a paper, agreeing to put everything
into its original condition at the expiration of their lease.

That same evening Coupeau brought in a mason, a painter and a
carpenter, all friends and boon companions of his, who would do this
little job at night, after their day's work was over.

The cutting of the door, the painting and the cleaning would come to
about one hundred francs, and Coupeau agreed to pay them as fast as
his tenant paid him.

The next question was how to furnish the room? Gervaise left Mamma
Coupeau's wardrobe in it. She added a table and two chairs from her
own room. She was compelled to buy a bed and dressing table and divers
other things, which amounted to one hundred and thirty francs. This
she must pay for ten francs each month. So that for nearly a year they
could derive no benefit from their new lodger.

It was early in June that Lantier took possession of his new quarters.
Coupeau had offered the night before to help him with his trunk in
order to avoid the thirty sous for a fiacre. But the other seemed
embarrassed and said his trunk was heavy, and it seemed as if he
preferred to keep it a secret even now where he resided.

He came about three o'clock. Coupeau was not there, and Gervaise,
standing at her shop door, turned white as she recognized the trunk
on the fiacre. It was their old one with which they had traveled from
Plassans. Now it was banged and battered and strapped with cords.

She saw it brought in as she had often seen it in her dreams, and she
vaguely wondered if it were the same fiacre which had taken him and
Adele away. Boche welcomed Lantier cordially. Gervaise stood by in
silent bewilderment, watching them place the trunk in her lodger's
room. Then hardly knowing what she said, she murmured:

"We must take a glass of wine together----"

Lantier, who was busy untying the cords on his trunk, did not look up,
and she added:

"You will join us, Monsieur Boche!"

And she went for some wine and glasses. At that moment she caught
sight of Poisson passing the door. She gave him a nod and a wink which
he perfectly understood: it meant, when he was on duty, that he was
offered a glass of wine. He went round by the courtyard in order not
to be seen. Lantier never saw him without some joke in regard to his
political convictions, which, however, had not prevented the men from
becoming excellent friends.

To one of these jests Boche now replied:

"Did you know," he said, "that when the emperor was in London he was a
policeman, and his special duty was to carry all the intoxicated women
to the station house?"

Gervaise had filled three glasses on the table. She did not care
for any wine; she was sick at heart as she stood looking at Lantier
kneeling on the floor by the side of the trunk. She was wild to know
what it contained. She remembered that in one corner was a pile of
stockings, a shirt or two and an old hat. Were those things still
there? Was she to be confronted with those tattered relics of the
past?

Lantier did not lift the lid, however; he rose and, going to the
table, held his glass high in his hands.

"To your health, madame!" he said.

And Poisson and Boche drank with him.

Gervaise filled their glasses again. The three men wiped their lips
with the backs of their hands.

Then Lantier opened his trunk. It was filled with a hodgepodge of
papers, books, old clothes and bundles of linen. He pulled out a
saucepan, then a pair of boots, followed by a bust of Ledru Rollin
with a broken nose, then an embroidered shirt and a pair of ragged
pantaloons, and Gervaise perceived a mingled and odious smell of
tobacco, leather and dust.

No, the old hat was not in the left corner; in its place was a pin
cushion, the gift of some woman. All at once the strange anxiety with
which she had watched the opening of this trunk disappeared, and in
its place came an intense sadness as she followed each article with
her eyes as Lantier took them out and wondered which belonged to her
time and which to the days when another woman filled his life.

"Look here, Poisson," cried Lantier, pulling out a small book. It
was a scurrilous attack on the emperor, printed at Brussels, entitled
_The Amours of Napoleon III_.

Poisson was aghast. He found no words with which to defend the
emperor. It was in a book--of course, therefore, it was true. Lantier,
with a laugh of triumph, turned away and began to pile up his books
and papers, grumbling a little that there were no shelves on which
to put them. Gervaise promised to buy some for him. He owned Louis
Blanc's _Histoire de Dix Ans_, all but the first volume, which he
had never had, Lamartine's _Les Girondins_, _The Mysteries of
Paris_ and _The Wandering Jew_, by Eugene Sue, without counting
a pile of incendiary volumes which he had picked up at bookstalls.
His old newspapers he regarded with especial respect. He had collected
them with care for years: whenever he had read an article at a cafe
of which he approved, he bought the journal and preserved it. He
consequently had an enormous quantity, of all dates and names, tied
together without order or sequence.

He laid them all in a corner of the room, saying as he did so:

"If people would study those sheets and adopt the ideas therein,
society would be far better organized than it now is. Your emperor
and all his minions would come down a bit on the ladder--"

Here he was interrupted by Poisson, whose red imperial and mustache
irradiated his pale face.

"And the army," he said, "what would you do with that?"

Lantier became very much excited.

"The army!" he cried. "I would scatter it to the four winds of
heaven! I want the military system of the country abolished! I want
the abolition of titles and monopolies! I want salaries equalized!
I want liberty for everyone. Divorces, too--"

"Yes; divorces, of course," interposed Boche. "That is needed in the
cause of morality."

Poisson threw back his head, ready for an argument, but Gervaise,
who did not like discussions, interfered. She had recovered from the
torpor into which she had been plunged by the sight of this trunk, and
she asked the men to take another glass. Lantier was suddenly subdued
and drank his wine, but Boche looked at Poisson uneasily.

"All this talk is between ourselves, is it not?" he said to the
policeman.

Poisson did not allow him to finish: he laid his hand on his heart
and declared that he was no spy. Their words went in at one ear and
out at another. He had forgotten them already.

Coupeau by this time appeared, and more wine was sent for. But Poisson
dared linger no longer, and, stiff and haughty, he departed through
the courtyard.

From the very first Lantier was made thoroughly at home. Lantier had
his separate room, private entrance and key. But he went through the
shop almost always. The accumulation of linen disturbed Gervaise, for
her husband never arranged the boxes he had promised, and she was
obliged to stow it away in all sorts of places, under the bed and in
the corner. She did not like making up Etienne's mattress late at
night either.

Goujet had spoken of sending the child to Lille to his own old master,
who wanted apprentices. The plan pleased her, particularly as the
boy, who was not very happy at home, was impatient to become his own
master. But she dared not ask Lantier, who had come there to live
ostensibly to be near his son. She felt, therefore, that it was hardly
a good plan to send the boy away within a couple of weeks after his
father's arrival.

When, however, she did make up her mind to approach the subject he
expressed warm approval of the idea, saying that youths were far
better in the country than in Paris.

Finally it was decided that Etienne should go, and when the morning
of his departure arrived Lantier read his son a long lecture and then
sent him off, and the house settled down into new habits.

Gervaise became accustomed to seeing the dirty linen lying about and
to seeing Lantier coming in and going out. He still talked with an
important air of his business operations. He went out daily, dressed
with the utmost care and came home, declaring that he was worn out
with the discussions in which he had been engaged and which involved
the gravest and most important interests.

He rose about ten o'clock, took a walk if the day pleased him, and if
it rained he sat in the shop and read his paper. He liked to be there.
It was his delight to live surrounded by a circle of worshiping women,
and he basked indolently in the warmth and atmosphere of ease and
comfort, which characterized the place.

At first Lantier took his meals at the restaurant at the corner, but
after a while he dined three or four times a week with the Coupeaus
and finally requested permission to board with them and agreed to pay
them fifteen francs each Saturday. Thus he was regularly installed and
was one of the family. He was seen in his shirt sleeves in the shop
every morning, attending to any little matters or receiving orders
from the customers. He induced Gervaise to leave her own wine merchant
and go to a friend of his own. Then he found fault with the bread and
sent Augustine to the Vienna bakery in a distant _faubourg_. He
changed the grocer but kept the butcher on account of his political
opinions.

At the end of a month he had instituted a change in the cuisine.
Everything was cooked in oil: being a Provencal, that was what he
adored. He made the omelets himself, which were as tough as leather.
He superintended Mamma Coupeau and insisted that the beefsteaks should
be thoroughly cooked, until they were like the soles of an old shoe.
He watched the salad to see that nothing went in which he did not
like. His favorite dish was vermicelli, into which he poured half
a bottle of oil. This he and Gervaise ate together, for the others,
being Parisians, could not be induced to taste it.

By degrees Lantier attended to all those affairs which fall to the
share of the master of the house and to various details of their
business, in addition. He insisted that if the five francs which the
Lorilleux people had agreed to pay toward the support of Mamma Coupeau
was not forthcoming they should go to law about it. In fact, ten
francs was what they ought to pay. He himself would go and see if he
could not make them agree to that. He went up at once and asked them
in such a way that he returned in triumph with the ten francs. And
Mme Lerat, too, did the same at his representation. Mamma Coupeau
could have kissed Lantier's hands, who played the part, besides, of
an arbiter in the quarrels between the old woman and Gervaise.

The latter, as was natural, sometimes lost patience with the old
woman, who retreated to her bed to weep. He would bluster about and
ask if they were simpletons, to amuse people with their disagreements,
and finally induced them to kiss and be friends once more.

He expressed his mind freely in regard to Nana also. In his opinion
she was brought up very badly, and here he was quite right, for when
her father cuffed her her mother upheld her, and when, in her turn,
the mother reproved, the father made a scene.

Nana was delighted at this and felt herself free to do much as she
pleased.

She had started a new game at the farriery opposite. She spent entire
days swinging on the shafts of the wagons. She concealed herself, with
her troop of followers, at the back of the dark court, redly lit by
the forge, and then would make sudden rushes with screams and whoops,
followed by every child in the neighborhood, reminding one of a flock
of martins or sparrows.

Lantier was the only one whose scoldings had any effect. She listened
to him graciously. This child of ten years of age, precocious and
vicious, coquetted with him as if she had been a grown woman. He
finally assumed the care of her education. He taught her to dance
and to talk slang!

Thus a year passed away. The whole neighborhood supposed Lantier to
be a man of means--otherwise how did the Coupeaus live as they did?
Gervaise, to be sure, still made money, but she supported two men who
did nothing, and the shop, of course, did not make enough for that.
The truth was that Lantier had never paid one sou, either for board
or lodging. He said he would let it run on, and when it amounted to
a good sum he would pay it all at once.

After that Gervaise never dared to ask him for a centime. She got
bread, wine and meat on credit; bills were running up everywhere, for
their expenditures amounted to three and four francs every day. She
had never paid anything, even a trifle on account, to the man from
whom she had bought her furniture or to Coupeau's three friends who
had done the work in Lantier's room. The tradespeople were beginning
to grumble and treated her with less politeness.

But she seemed to be insensible to this; she chose the most expensive
things, having thrown economy to the winds, since she had given up
paying for things at once. She always intended, however, to pay
eventually and had a vague notion of earning hundreds of francs daily
in some extraordinary way by which she could pay all these people.

About the middle of summer Clemence departed, for there was not enough
work for two women; she had waited for her money for some weeks.
Lantier and Coupeau were quite undisturbed, however. They were in the
best of spirits and seemed to be growing fat over the ruined business.

In the _Quartier_ there was a vast deal of gossip. Everybody
wondered as to the terms on which Lantier and Gervaise now stood. The
Lorilleuxs viciously declared that Gervaise would be glad enough to
resume her old relations with Lantier but that he would have nothing
to do with her, for she had grown old and ugly. The Boche people
took a different view, but while everyone declared that the whole
arrangement was a most improper one, they finally accepted it as
quite a matter of course and altogether natural.

It is quite possible there were other homes which were quite as open
to invidious remarks within a stone's throw, but these Coupeaus, as
their neighbors said, were good, kind people. Lantier was especially
ingratiating. It was decided, therefore, to let things go their own
way undisturbed.

Gervaise lived quietly indifferent to, and possibly entirely
unsuspicious of, all these scandals. By and by it came to pass that
her husband's own people looked on her as utterly heartless. Mme Lerat
made her appearance every evening, and she treated Lantier as if he
were utterly irresistible, into whose arms any and every woman would
be only too glad to fall. An actual league seemed to be forming
against Gervaise: all the women insisted on giving her a lover.

But she saw none of these fascinations in him. He had changed,
unquestionably, and the external changes were all in his favor. He
wore a frock coat and had acquired a certain polish. But she who knew
him so well looked down into his soul through his eyes and shuddered
at much she saw there. She could not understand what others saw in him
to admire. And she said so one day to Virginie. Then Mme Lerat and
Virginie vied with each other in the stories they told of Clemence and
himself--what they did and said whenever her back was turned--and now
they were sure, since she had left the establishment, that he went
regularly to see her.

"Well, what of it?" asked Gervaise, her voice trembling. "What have
I to do with that?"

But she looked into Virginie's dark brown eyes, which were specked
with gold and emitted sparks as do those of cats. But the woman put
on a stupid look as she answered:

"Why, nothing, of course; only I should think you would advise him
not to have anything to do with such a person."

Lantier was gradually changing his manner to Gervaise. Now when he
shook hands with her he held her fingers longer than was necessary.
He watched her incessantly and fixed his bold eyes upon her. He leaned
over her so closely that she felt his breath on her cheek. But one
evening, being alone with her, he caught her in both arms. At that
moment Goujet entered. Gervaise wrenched herself free, and the three
exchanged a few words as if nothing had happened. Goujet was very pale
and seemed embarrassed, supposing that he had intruded upon them and
that she had pushed Lantier aside only because she did not choose to
be embraced in public.

The next day Gervaise was miserable, unhappy and restless. She could
not iron a handkerchief. She wanted to see Goujet and tell him just
what had happened, but ever since Etienne had gone to Lille she had
given up going to the forge, as she was quite unable to face the
knowing winks with which his comrades received her. But this day she
determined to go, and, taking an empty basket on her arms, she started
off, pretending that she was going with skirts to some customers in
La Rue des Portes-Blanches.

Goujet seemed to be expecting her, for she met him loitering on the
corner.

"Ah," he said with a wan smile, "you are going home, I presume?"

He hardly knew what he was saying, and they both turned toward
Montmartre without another word. They merely wished to go away from
the forge. They passed several manufactories and soon found themselves
with an open field before them. A goat was tethered near by and
bleating as it browsed, and a dead tree was crumbling away in the
hot sun.

"One might almost think oneself in the country," murmured Gervaise.

They took a seat under the dead tree. The clearstarcher set the basket
down at her feet. Before them stretched the heights of Montmartre,
with its rows of yellow and gray houses amid clumps of trees, and
when they threw back their heads a little they saw the whole sky
above, clear and cloudless, but the sunlight dazzled them, and they
looked over to the misty outlines of the _faubourg_ and watched the
smoke rising from tall chimneys in regular puffs, indicating the
machinery which impelled it. These great sighs seemed to relieve
their own oppressed breasts.

"Yes," said Gervaise after a long silence. "I have been on a long
walk, and I came out--"

She stopped. After having been so eager for an explanation she found
herself unable to speak and overwhelmed with shame. She knew that he
as well as herself had come to that place with the wish and intention
of speaking on one especial subject, and yet neither of them dared to
allude to it. The occurrence of the previous evening weighed on both
their souls.

Then with a heart torn with anguish and with tears in her eyes, she
told him of the death of Mme Bijard, who had breathed her last that
morning after suffering unheard-of agonies.

"It was caused by a kick of Bijard's," she said in her low, soft
voice; "some internal injury. For three days she has suffered
frightfully. Why are not such men punished? I suppose, though, if the
law undertook to punish all the wretches who kill their wives that it
would have too much to do. After all, one kick more or less: what does
it matter in the end? And this poor creature, in her desire to save
her husband from the scaffold, declared she had fallen over a tub."

Goujet did not speak. He sat pulling up the tufts of grass.

"It is not a fortnight," continued Gervaise, "since she weaned her
last baby, and here is that child Lalie left to take care of two
mites. She is not eight years old but as quiet and sensible as if
she were a grown woman, and her father kicks and strikes her too.
Poor little soul! There are some persons in this world who seem
born to suffer."

Goujet looked at her and then said suddenly, with trembling lips:

"You made me suffer yesterday."

Gervaise clasped her hands imploringly, and he continued:

"I knew of course how it must end; only you should not have allowed me
to think--"

He could not finish. She started up, seeing what his convictions were.
She cried out:

"You are wrong! I swear to you that you are wrong! He was going to
kiss me, but his lips did not touch me, and it is the very first time
that he made the attempt. Believe me, for I swear--on all that I hold
most sacred--that I am telling you the truth."

But the blacksmith shook his head. He knew that women did not always
tell the truth on such points. Gervaise then became very grave.

"You know me well," she said; "you know that I am no liar. I again
repeat that Lantier and I are friends. We shall never be anything
more, for if that should ever come to pass I should regard myself
as the vilest of the vile and should be unworthy of the friendship
of a man like yourself." Her face was so honest, her eyes were so
clear and frank, that he could do no less than believe her. Once more
he breathed freely. He held her hand for the first time. Both were
silent. White clouds sailed slowly above their heads with the majesty
of swans. The goat looked at them and bleated piteously, eager to be
released, and they stood hand in hand on that bleak slope with tears
in their eyes.

"Your mother likes me no longer," said Gervaise in a low voice. "Do
not say no; how can it be otherwise? We owe you so much money."

He roughly shook her arm in his eagerness to check the words on her
lips; he would not hear her. He tried to speak, but his throat was
too dry; he choked a little and then he burst out:

"Listen to me," he cried; "I have long wished to say something to you.
You are not happy. My mother says things are all going wrong with you,
and," he hesitated, "we must go away together and at once."

She looked at him, not understanding him but impressed by this abrupt
declaration of a love from him, who had never before opened his lips
in regard to it.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"I mean," he answered without looking in her face, "that we two can
go away and live in Belgium. It is almost the same to me as home, and
both of us could get work and live comfortably."

The color came to her face, which she would have hidden on his
shoulder to hide her shame and confusion. He was a strange fellow to
propose an elopement. It was like a book and like the things she heard
of in high society. She had often seen and known of the workmen about
her making love to married women, but they did not think of running
away with them.

"Ah, Monsieur Goujet!" she murmured, but she could say no more.

"Yes," he said, "we two would live all by ourselves."

But as her self-possession returned she refused with firmness.

"It is impossible," she said, "and it would be very wrong. I am
married and I have children. I know that you are fond of me, and I
love you too much to allow you to commit any such folly as you are
talking of, and this would be an enormous folly. No; we must live on
as we are. We respect each other now. Let us continue to do so. That
is a great deal and will help us over many a roughness in our paths.
And when we try to do right we are sure of a reward."

He shook his head as he listened to her, but he felt she was right.
Suddenly he snatched her in his arms and kissed her furiously once and
then dropped her and turned abruptly away. She was not angry, but the
locksmith trembled from head to foot. He began to gather some of the
wild daisies, not knowing what to do with his hands, and tossed them
into her empty basket. This occupation amused him and tranquillized
him. He broke off the head of the flowers and, when he missed his
mark and they fell short of the basket, laughed aloud.

Gervaise sat with her back against the tree, happy and calm. And when
she set forth on her walk home her basket was full of daisies, and
she was talking of Etienne.

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